


Eat, Go Birding, Love

by theremin



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:08:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21822682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theremin/pseuds/theremin
Summary: After Pied Piper's disastrous launch Richard goes travelling.
Relationships: Jared Dunn/Richard Hendricks
Comments: 143
Kudos: 151





	1. Fried Rice

If only there hadn't been rats. Jared felt sure if those cute, disease-laden little critters hadn't flocked to every 5G tower in ten major cities the Pied Piper story would have passed without much fanfare, like most tech scandals. Theranos was an exception, that had the "hook" of being led by a young, attractive blonde in a piquant sexual relationship with her COO, but every other tech disaster pretty much seemed to pass the general public by. Look at Mark Zuckerberg, who was such a charisma vacuum people got bored just looking at him, forgetting about whatever latest privacy breach he stood trial for even as he was committing the next one. No, most tech stories got some massively upvoted Reddit thread, no mainstream coverage, and then that was it. But Pied Piper had rats.

HBO had already put together a (shoddy) documentary. CJ Cantwell was writing a book. CJ had also sold the film rights, and a movie was in pre-production. Apparently Michael Cera was a hot name to play Richard, which was the most ridiculous thing Jared had ever heard. He wasn't sure any of the new crop of Hollywood film stars could come close to capturing Richard's smoulder. Maybe Armie Hammer for the physicality. Jared had heard someone had cast James Dean in a film and were going to CGI his likeness in it, he supposed if that worked Montgomery Clift could be cast to play Richard. That would be acceptable. But Michael Cera?? Absolutely ridiculous. He hadn't been able to resist looking at casting possibilities for himself as well, and had been flattered by the suggestion of Helen Hunt.

But the point was, the Pied Piper story was huge, and that was a problem. Richard had become a celebrity, but a bad kind of celebrity. A ridiculed one. Some of the things people were writing about him online were just incredibly hurtful. He'd used his last opportunity to blog for the company website to vent a little about it. That should show them. He had sent the link to Richard, but he hadn't replied. He didn't really reply to messages much these days. Both during and after the launch he had been the consummate professional and played the part to perfection, the captain had gone down with his glorious, toxic, rat infested ship. But now he was adrift at sea and while Jared would like nothing better than to be used as some kind of raft or other floatation device, Richard refused every offer of help. It was distressing, to say the least.

*

Jared parked his Prius outside the apartment building and got out. He walked up five floors and knocked. The door opened and a young woman with long, dyed-black hair and an octopus tattoo on her shoulder smiled up at him. "Hi, Jared!"

"Hi Abby," Jared said and leaned down - way down, she barely scraped 5ft - into a tight hug. "how are you holding up?" he asked in a trembling voice.

"I'm um, I'm doing okay, Jared. Nana was 87, it didn't exactly come out of the blue. Hey, come in."

Jared took his shoes off and stepped into Abby's apartment. It wasn't large, but it was colourful, and she'd hung up several of her own paintings. 

"No sugar in your tea, right?" she asked, turning on the water heater in her tiny kitchen.

"Right," he replied, looked at himself in the elaborately framed mirror in the hallway. He looked tired. He felt tired. But whatever strain he felt now would just be a tiny fraction of what poor Richard was going through.

"Your eulogy was so lovely, everyone in the family said so," Abby said, handing him a delicate teacup. Jared recognised Gloria's set and ached a little.

"You read it beautifully," he said. "I wish I could have done it myself, but..."

"You were too upset, we could all tell. It's fine. So how are things going with you, with the whole, Pied Piper debacle."

Jared shrugged. "I mostly worry for Richard. He's isolated himself."

"I think I would too. He's basically Elizabeth Holmes without the weird voice."

"Elizabeth is a scammer," Jared said a little sternly. He'd met her a couple of times and never really taken to her. "Richard didn't know the effect PiperNet would have on the rodent population. And he never tried to steal Steve Jobs' look either, he has his own unique style which I'm sure would have become just as iconic if things had gone as planned."

"Of course, I'm sorry. I know you're in love with the guy."

Jared stared, swallowed. "Gloria told you that?"

She laughed. "No, but he's legit all you ever talk about."

Jared pinked a little. "Well, um, he's uh, my boss. Or he was. So naturally he's a large part of my life."

"Okaay..." Abby said. "well, now he's not your boss anymore, are you going to shoot your shot?"

Jared played with his collar. He didn't really feel comfortable discussing this with Abby. He liked her, he'd known her since she was a teenager, but they weren't... confidants. Not like he and Gloria had been. There wasn't a thing he didn't feel comfortable telling Gloria. "I think if something like that was going to happen between Richard and I, it would have done so already," he said a little primly. "all I can do now is be there for him in his hour of need."

*

Jared knocked on the anonymous door (he noticed the name plate saying HENDRICKS in a simple font had been removed), first a little timidly, then firmly. "Richard?"

He waited what seemed like an appropriate amount of time, then knocked again. "Richard, I still have your spare key. I respect your privacy, but I also need to know you're okay."

Another pause. "I'm coming in, Richard."

Jared locked himself in. The apartment was dark and smelled... well, kind of like the windows hadn't been opened in a while. "Richard?"

He put the plastic bag he'd been carrying on the kitchen table, walked over to the bedroom and knocked a little knock, then opened it. It was dark, and Richard was lying on his bed, under the covers, with a pair of noise cancelling headphones on. He looked up, saw Jared, then flopped back down on his side, pushed the headphones off. "What are you doing here?" His voice was hoarse.

"Hey, buddy," Jared said gently. "just wanted to see how you were doing."

"Fantastic," Richard said tunelessly. "never been happier."

Jared went to sit on the edge of Richard's bed. "Things are a little stormy right now. But they will pass," he said.

"I know."

Jared sat there in silence for a bit. He wished Richard would ask him to do something for him. Or just say something. Eventually, he cracked. "Hey, you mentioned travelling? Remember? I actually think that would be a really good idea. Ride out the storm somewhere else, not the one city where most of the population knows your face."

"Yeah."

"I could- I could help you plan it. Order plane tickets, book hotels. I could, I could even come with you? I wouldn't mind a holiday."

Richard turned away from him. "I'm sorry, man. I'm not feeling super sociable right now." He looked very small and frail, wrapped up tightly in his covers.

"Are you eating, Richard?"

"I'm okay. Okay?"

"I got you some takeaway. It's in the kitchen. If. If you feel hungry, later."

"Thanks," Richard said, reached out and grabbed the headphones.

"Would you like me to maybe-"

"Jared, I'm just like, not in the mood for a visit."

"Well, we don't have to talk. I could maybe just clean a little? It's a little musty in here. Just, I just want to be here for you."

"I want to be alone. I'm sorry, but like, you should probably leave."

Jared took a deep breath, patted Richard's shoulder, and got up. "Text me if you need me, okay? For anything at all."

"Okay, Jared. Thanks."

"Is it okay if I hang on to your spare key?"

There was a pause. "Yeah, man. Thanks."

*

Richard woke up and blinked. He sighed. Was he hungry? He couldn't really tell, but he couldn't remember the last time he ate, either. He wondered what Jared had got him. He decided to get up, and ten minutes later, he did. He wrapped his duvet around himself and walked slowly, coccooned, into his kitchen. Fried rice and spring rolls. He could go for that. He got a soda out of his fridge and a fork out of his drawer and brought his food over to the sofa. God he was so fucking bored. He missed the internet. But he couldn't exactly go on twitter, or reddit, or facebook, or linkedin, or even his own fucking email without being reminded of the fact he was the biggest clown in tech right now. He'd tried going on youtube the other day and it had recommended him ten videos with people dissecting the Pied Piper disaster, thank you youtube algorithm. Fucking algorithms. They'd ruined his life. He managed about half the rice and one spring roll before he felt nauseous. He put the leftovers in the fridge and decided to go back to bed. On his way he stopped at his bookshelf. A book caught his eye. A big book of Polish film posters. He'd borrowed it off Erlich before he disappeared. He took it out of the shelf, and opened it, decided to take a look through it. A piece of paper slipped out of the book. Richard put the book back on the shelf and crouched down to pick up the paper.

He recognised Erlich's childlike scrawl. It was a list of cities, with some notes underneath each. At the end of the list was just the word ENLIGHTENMENT in capital letters. Richard ran a hand through his hair. He wondered if Erlich had found enlightenment. If that's why he never came back. He took the note with him to bed, lay back down and turned on his nightlamp.

_Zurich. Switzerland, good place to start. Neutral country, doesn't judge. Charlie Chaplin went there when he got blacklisted for being a commie who liked young trim. Shania Twain went there too, same reasons? Must investigate further._

Richard frowned, got his phone out from the drawer in his nightstand and turned it on. He braced himself for all the notifications and gulped when they came flowing in. He swiped them all away without looking at them. Then he searched for flights to Zurich.

*

Jared was under his blanket reading a mystery novel when he got a text message from Richard. He knew it was from Richard because he'd set a special notification sound for him. He jumped up and grabbed his phone.

_Hey man. Thanks for the food. I'm going travelling like we talked about, will probably be away for a few months. Sorry I've been such a miserable asshole. I'll look you up when I'm back._

_Where are you going?_ Jared wrote.

Richard didn't reply.


	2. Gruyère

When Richard set his mind to something, he didn't fuck around. The time after the Event (the PiperNet launch was still painful to think about and he'd organised it in a sort of mental box labelled the Event which he planned to stow away in the basement of his mind with the Ark of the Covenant and all the other shit he didn't want to look at) had well, it had sucked. The worst thing was the aimlessness. He'd worked so hard, so focussed, for such a long time, okay, he'd had to pivot and change it up on several occasions but still, it wasn't like he got up in the morning with nothing to do. Now though? Christ.

So Erlich's list represented something more than just a travel itinerary. It was something he could work towards, cross off. As he sat poring over it in his bed, he got the idea to find Erlich. He'd travel in his footsteps all the way to Tibet, the last item on the list before the capitalised ENLIGHTENMENT. Richard had a vision of himself as Henry Morton Stanley, cutting his way through the jungle, finding a bald Marlon Brando version of Erlich in some cabin, living it up with new tibetan friends and a monkey or a sun bear, maybe. Richard wasn't sure what he'd do after that. Maybe he could join the tibetan iteration of his incubator. All that was still in the future. Still, having a goal to work towards kicked Richard's monomaniacal side into high gear, and by the end of the night he'd booked a flight to Zurich, a hotel room for three days, researched European train routes and downloaded a tibetan language learning app. He sent off a text message to Jared, the only person he figured would immediately notice his absence, packed a backpack of essentials, slept for a few hours and then took the 9:20 flight from SF International to Zurich.

When he stepped off the plane, everything felt different, fresher in a way. He was in another country, another timezone, somewhere people (hopefully) didn't give a shit who he was. The air was colder, it was bracing. He liked it. It felt like waking up into something new.

He found a decent hotel and slept for twelve hours straight.

On his first real day, only slightly jet lagged, he mostly just walked around and got his bearings. He found a big Charlie Chaplin graffiti and it felt like a sign. He tried the famous chocolate (not overrated) and bought some writing supplies.

His second morning he took his new, lined notebook and ball pen and sat down in a cafe in the same street as his hotel, ordered a coffee and a cheese sandwich, and started planning his trip for real. The cities Erlich had listed were: Zurich, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Madrid, Bangkok, Phnomh Pehn, Hong Kong, Dali City and Lhasa. Richard figured he could take the train north from Zurich, then fly down to Spain, and fly out from Spain to Bangkok and do an Asian tour. He looked at HooliMaps, he looked at the eurail website, he looked on trivago, he looked at embassy pages and made notes on where he'd need a visa, he plotted out a basic timeline. He figured, two months minimum, but if he enjoyed it he could stretch it out for as long as necessary. He budgeted and even looked at some remote work pages and figured that could be a way to stay afloat if he ran out of funds. Then he started studying the notes Erlich had written. Most of them were pretty stupid, but could there be some actual clues in there? He tried writing down little keywords and seeing if they made sense when looked at together and then he felt a little stupid and conspiracy theory-ish. He suddenly had an idea and looked through the gallery on his phone. He found a photo of all of them, himself, Jared, Gilfoyle, Dinesh and Erlich, back in the incubator days, and cropped it to just Erlich. Maybe he could ask around, show his photo. If uh, circumstances were right. He'd been in the cafe for more than an hour when an intimately familiar voice yelped, "Oh my god! Richard!" and he looked up into the delighted face of Jared Dunn.

"What- what the fuck, man?" Richard said. He got up and Jared hugged him. Richard hugged back a little awkwardly.

"Oh, what a surprise!" Jared said, sat down on the chair opposite Richard's.

"What are you doing here?" Richard hurriedly folded away Erlich's list into the notebook, slipped it down his backpack.

"Well, since you were going travelling, I thought I could really use a vacation too. I just landed earlier this morning."

"You didn't- you didn't know I was here?"

Jared smiled pleasantly, shook his head.

"Well, that's um, a pretty big uh coincidence? How long are you staying for?"

Jared shrugged. "I thought I'd do a little European tour by train, see some different countries. What about you?"

"Uh. Same."

"Oh Richard," Jared said conspiratorially, fingers dancing at his throat. "maybe we should team up, for a little bit? Two Americans abroad? What do you say?"

Richard smiled a little. "Yeah, sure man. It's uh, nice to see you."

Jared grinned. "Oh! Well, it's nice to see you too! It's always nice to see you, Richard."

They agreed to go out sightseeing, but Richard wanted to stop by his hotel room first. After he'd locked himself in he went into his Hooli Calendar app and quietly revoked Jared's access to it. He didn't for a moment believe their meeting had been a coincidence. His flight and hotel were both itemised in the calendar he'd shared with Jared, and he wouldn't be surprised if Jared checked that shit on the regular. But he wasn't mad. He felt a little more like himself now he had something else to focus on, and figured it would be nice having someone to talk to. Plus, he felt kind of shitty for how he'd been treating Jared lately, who could be a little much but truly only meant well. Yeah, they'd spend a nice week or two together, and Jared would go back to the states with some pictures and stories of Wonderful Richard to bore his decrepit friends with, and Richard would go back on Erlich's trail. After all, he had all the time in the world.

"Be nice," he told himself in the mirror and tried out a smile.

Jared was waiting cheerfully outside the hotel and Richard nodded at him, and they walked down to the lake.

"So, why Switzerland?" Richard asked.

Jared shrugged. "I always wanted to go. I like looking at pictures from here. Looks like a fairy tale country. Even their biggest city has this gorgeous lake."

"Okay. Yeah, it's nice, isn't it?"

"Why did you want to come here?"

Richard bit his lip. He didn't really want to tell Jared about the Erlich plan. That was like, it was his thing, and he was afraid it would sound incredibly dumb if he said it out loud. "Ummm. I uh. I wanted to try the cheese."

Jared laughed. "What?"

"Yeah uh." He tried remembering the name of the cheese sandwich he'd had in the cafe, that had been pretty good. "Gruyere, that kind of thing, you know."

They reached the lake and Jared clasped his hands together. "Oh! It's marvellous! Even prettier than in the pictures!" He walked ahead of Richard - Richard had to speed up to keep up - down to the water, and got a small pair of foldable binoculars out of his bag, looked around. He pointed. "Let's go there." Richard followed and they found a scenic little spot where plenty of water fowl were sailing around on the water.

"What the fuck kind of bird is that?" Richard frowned.

"What, the mandarin duck? Aren't they fantastic? They're so... flamboyant." Jared smiled and leaned in. "Would you like to borrow my binoculars, Richard?"

Richard shrugged. He remembered all the times Jared had invited him to go birding and he said he was too busy or didn't answer at all. Ugh, he was such a shitty friend. "Yeah uh, I'd love to." Jared handed them over and Richard put them to his eyes, got a clear view of the colourful duck. "Man, that's festive."

"It's because it's mating season. It's pretty anonymous looking otherwise but it moults and puts on its fineries when it tries to meet a pretty lady! It's really an Asian bird but there are some populations here in Europe. They're not very common, but I'm sure this one is spoilt on tourist attention and seeks out people. There's a single specimen in Central Park, he's famous. He's called Mandarin Patinkin."

Richard snorted. "That's so dumb."

Jared got out a little notebook and made a note. "I hope I'll be able to see a lot of fun species. This was a treat!"

Richard smiled and gave him the binoculars back. He sat down on the grass. Jared sat down next to him. "How are you, Richard?"

Richard breathed in deeply. He knew what he meant. "Not too bad, Jared. Leaving the apartment and leaving Palo Alto was a good decision. I feel a lot better. More um. Hopeful."

Jared touched him then, just a little stroke of his arm, then he put his binoculars to his eyes again. Richard lay down on the grass, shielded his eyes from the sun with his forearm, and smiled. Yeah, he felt better.

*

In his own hotel room that night, Jared changed into his pajamas and went to bed, phone in hand. He opened the Hooli Calendar app to check if Richard had updated his itinerary and squinted when he realised he couldn't view it anymore. He frowned. Okay? But Richard had seemed pretty pleased to see him, so he decided not to let it get to him. Maybe it was some kind of mistake or error. He tapped his teeth with his fingernails. It might make this a little more difficult though. Richard hadn't been too hard to track down, but of course he'd seen the name and address of the hotel in his calendar. He was due to check out tomorrow. Well. Hopefully Richard would still want to travel together, and he wouldn't have to find out where Richard was staying because Richard would tell him. Or because they might even check in together! Jared smiled. He imagined getting rooms next to each other, really taking advantage of all the complimentary tea bags into the night, talking and laughing. Just days ago things had seemed so bleak and hopeless and now he was on a grand European tour with Richard. Not even for work, but just two bros, two close friends, seeing the world together. Jared smiled, put his phone on the nightstand and put a hand over his heart. Gosh, he was lucky.

*

In his hotel room Richard was thinking about Erlich and looking at his note for Amsterdam. _These crazy mother fuckers love to get high and fuck and cut off their ears. Bound to be a good ass time. Plus I wanna visit The Anne Frank House._ Richard frowned a little, then he turned off the light.


	3. Poffertjes

"Would you like the window seat, Richard?"

Richard shrugged. "You take it."

"Are you sure?"

Richard pushed Jared into the window seat and sat in the train's aisle seat. They were in Germany, they'd taken the train and then the bus into Schönwald im Schwarzwald because Jared wanted to see the place where the cuckoo clock was invented and Richard didn't particularly object. It was a cute little village, probably overcrowded in summer but it was the end of september and still nice and warm-ish but not overwhelmed with fellow travellers. They'd gone hiking and tried the local beer (gross, like all beer, in Richard's opinion) and Jared had been able to write down several new bird species in his notebook which he was very excited about. Richard was starting to see the appeal. It was kind of like Pokemon. Just uh, without any battles. It was honestly nice seeing Jared like this. He wore shorts and T-shirts and a backpack and his hair was like... wild. Well, by Jared standards, considering his hair normally looked like some kind of Lego office worker prototype wig. He just looked like... a dude. They'd never really hung out all that much in a non work context, Richard was starting to question how well he really knew him. Well, obviously they'd spent the last several years together nonstop, but work had been, like, life. Richard had to figure out how to live without Pied Piper now. Well, after he'd found Erlich. They were on their way to the next destination on the list now - Amsterdam. 

"What should we do in Amsterdam?" Jared asked, smiling. They were playing cards on the little fold down train tables. 

"Wanna go to the Anne Frank House?"

Jared gasped a little. "I would _love_ to. Oh, what a treat!"

Richard snorted. "Uh, sure. Uh. Have a Jack?"

Jared handed over the Jack of Hearts. "I loved that book when I was younger. Some times I would pretend I was her. That I was hiding from the nazis instead of the CPS."

Richard grimaced a little. "Jared, when you like, say shit like that, does it uh, does it mean you want to tell me about it?"

"What do you mean? I just told you."

"I mean, like, really tell me about it, like really talk about it?"

"That's what my therapist is for, silly!" Jared grinned. 

"Okay uh." Richard drew a deep breath. "I mean, we're friends, though, if you like, ever need to like... uh. I can like, I can listen. Um. Uh. Do you have a nine?"

Jared pulled his card fan up in front of his face and peered at Richard over the top of them. "Go fish."

*

They booked a hotel room with twin beds, so they could save money. Jared suggested they go out that night to a bar or something and Richard only slightly reluctantly agreed. They ended up at some annoying fucking night club and Richard felt deeply uncomfortable, held on to his cider for dear life. Jared had gone off to find the toilets and when he came back he had two girls with him. Richard frowned.

"THAT'S RICHARD!" Jared yelled over the shitty eurotecho and the girls waved in greeting. Jared nodded at the blonde and then they were off on the dance floor. The other girl, who had nice deep red hair and thin eyebrows, leaned in. 

"WANNA DANCE?"

"HUH?" Richard asked.

"DANCE??!"

Richard swallowed and nodded. No, he didn't particularly want to dance, not with this chick, not ever, in life, in general. He didn't even want to be inside there and be reminded of how much of a weird failure of an adult man he was. Not like Jared, who was dancing confidently, not even well but confidently, moving his body with another's like that was easy and natural and fun and not a hideous mortifying ordeal, those big hands of his on her small waist and he was like smiling at her and laughing like it was possible to hear a fucking thing said in that shithole. A Sia song started playing and Richard shuddered. This sucked. Someone yelled something and he realised thingy he was dancing with was trying to say something to him. 

"HUH?" he said again and leaned down.

"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?"

Richard shrugged apologetically. "FIRE ESCAPE DOORS," he said and she frowned. Then she winced as he stepped on her feet. "SORRY."

He looked over at Jared and the blonde again. Did- did she have her hand on his ass? What the hell? She was fucking tall too, even after just a day he'd noticed people there in Amsterdam being freakishly tall, Jared looked like a normal person and Richard felt like Gulliver in the land of the giants. Maybe Jared and this dutch giantess would have long ass babies together. Oh, we met at a night club like normal people do, now we have three nine foot sons, need them to form a human ladder and take you to the sun? 

He felt a hard shove in his chest and looked down to see the redhead scowling at him and walk away. "SORRY," he said again, not being sure what he did exactly.

Richard sighed, and made his way outside. The sounds of the night was like blessed, balmy silence compared to the garbage noise of the club. He got his phone out to text Jared. _Going home._ he typed. _Have fun._ He scowled at his phone. He felt like writing something mean. He wouldn't, but he felt like it.

"Richard," Jared said and Richard whipped around to look at him. "what are you doing?"

"Uh, I was just texting you. I'm leaving."

"What? But Anneliese will be so disappointed!"

"Who's that?"

"The girl you were dancing with? You little minx." He leaned in conspiratorially.

"Trust me, she doesn't care. What about uh, your blonde."

Jared rolled his eyes and waved his hand. "Oh, she won't notice I'm gone. Did you want to go somewhere else?"

"I wanna go back to the hotel and play World of Warcraft."

"Oh Richard!" Jared looked disappointed. "Come on, just one more place?"

"No, I'm fucking sick of shitty music and night clubs and bars, I wanna pretend to be an orc and kill travellers. You uh, you go have fun."

"Being with you is fun," Jared said firmly. "one more place. Please. If you hate it, we leave right away, and we can go murder all the travellers you like." He gave him a begging look. 

Richard sighed. "Okay."

The next place... was fine. Jared hustled them in a taxi and took them to a hotel, a swankier one than the one they had a room in, which had a library bar. The walls were lined with signed books. There were a good few people but the noise was manageable. Richard could actually hear what Jared was saying to him, the drinks actually tasted nice, and the deep chairs were comfortable. Richard was blinking and his right eye kept drooping down. He wasn't sure how much he'd had to drink anymore.

"I wish I was more like you," he said, apropos of nothing.

"What?" Jared grinned.

"You're like... uh. Like normal. Like good at. Shit. Women. Stuff. Talking. Everything."

"But Richard, you're a genius," Jared said with complete sincerity.

Richard snorted. "Some fucking genius. I could have destroyed the world. I'm a supervillain. That's what I am. I am like... Blofeld. I'm Dr Evil." He sank down into the chair. "Fuck. My. Life."

Jared reached out for his hand and held it, hard. Richard frowned at him but he was too drunk to react much more than that and just let it happen. "You are not a villain, because you chose to not do harm. Can you imagine how much better the world would be if people like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or Jack Dorsey or Jeff Bezos acted on warnings their products were causing trouble? If they cared, genuinely cared, about anything at all except money?" Jared was staring at him with blazing intensity now. "The world needs more people like you."

"Gents, sorry to bother you, but we are closing in five minutes," the bartender said, looking down on them apologetically.

They walked out and down the street, a little aimlessly.

"Do you know where we are?" Richard asked. 

"No, I'll check out the map."

"Wait, do you smell that?"

"Hm?"

Richard walked ahead, following a sweet smell. A food cart was a sole source of light in a square and a young ish dude was manning it. Richard walked up, nodded. "Uh, hi. Uh, English okay?"

"Yes, good evening."

"Uh good evening. What are those?"

"Poffertjes. Like little pancakes."

"Cool uh, how much?"

Richard and Jared shared the poffertjes on a bench. They were sweet and warm and a little bit greasy. Richard kept licking his fingers. "This is so fucking good," Richard said. "I love these tiny fucking pancake stamps."

Jared snorted. "They're very nice."

*

The next morning they went to the Anne Frank House. Even having bought their tickets online in advance the queue was pretty long. But Jared happily fitted himself into the small spaces and narrow staircases and hidden room and attic, sniffled at the little annotations, gasped at one of her real notebooks. Richard thought it was pretty interesting too, he just wished there had been less other people. Jared walked in front of him on the way out, and Richard hung back a little bit, quickly brought up his cropped Erlich photo on his phone and walked over to the guy at the ticket desk. 

"Um, hi, uh... this is going to be a weird question, but have you seen this guy? American? A while back? Big dude, annoying, loud?"

The guy studied the photo, squinted. "I don’t remember, I’m sorry," he said. "he is a friend of yours?"

Richard sighed. "Uh, yeah. I guess." He grimaced a little walking outside. Comic books made amateur sleuthery look a lot easier than it was. If he was going to find trace of whatever the fuck Erlich was doing two years ago, he should probably put a lot more thought into it. He just wished the clues he'd left had been better.

*

The excitement of seeing Anne Frank’s handwriting in real life took its toll on Jared, who was deep asleep by eleven that night. Richard was sitting in bed with his laptop and looked over at him. He was sleeping on his back, head tilted to the side, the thin and soft-looking fabric of his pajama top rested closely to the dips and planes of his body. Richard reached in his backpack and looked at Erlich’s note for Copenhagen.

_Land of vikings. Feel a great spiritual connection. Might go look at Ariel’s bazooms. Met a Danish dude in Presidio once, made him speak the language, sounded exactly the same when I was sober as when I was drunk. Good omen._

Richard put the note away, then he opened another browser window and did a search for bird species native to Denmark.


	4. Smørrebrød

About seven tourist buses were parked next to each other and literally hundreds of people were swarming the pier to get their photo taken with the Little Mermaid statue. Jared and Richard were watching from a peak in the nearby park. It was their fourth day in Copenhagen and early in the morning.

"Do you still want to go, Richard? We can queue."

"No, fuck that," Richard frowned. "Jesus Christ. Let's walk back to the city centre."

Jared scratched his arm. It was becoming colder and he'd bought a new hoodie. It was quite unusual, not having to dress professionally. Not that he strictly speaking had had to for the last six years but he really felt obliged to look neat and business casual. He hadn't had the raw programming skill of Richard, Dinesh or Gilfoyle, or the assured confidence and oratorial gifts of Erlich. What he'd had to offer was an ability to navigate the business world and he wanted to look the part, and that was what he had done. So now he felt a little odd in his comfortable travelwear, but it was really the only practical route. 

"Maybe there's another HC Andersen related attraction we could go see," Jared said. "I used to love his stories. The one about the ugly duckling, you know..."

"Yeah, yeah. The big gawky bird that was different to all the other ducklings but grew up to be a lovely swan." Richard laughed a little. "I think we all related to that one. And then we just grew up to be ugly ducks instead."

Jared rolled his eyes. "Oh stop it, Richard. You're not an ugly duck. You're a freshly moulted mandarin."

Richard snorted. "Yes, of course I am."

"I also loved the one with the tin soldier and the ballerina."

"I don't remember that one."

"Okay, so there's like a toy room, and in it there's a tin soldier with just the one leg, and he can see a lovely paper ballerina through the window in a toy castle. And because she's on one leg, you know, in arabesque pose, he thinks she's one-legged just like him and falls in love. He thinks, oh, that girl is the one, you know? A freak like me. Love at first sight." Jared started gesticulating as he told the story and Richard smiled at him. "But he's too shy to tell her, so he just loves from a distance, but that's enough for him, just to guard over her castle and keep her safe and do his job to the very best of his ability. Then um, the little boy takes his toys outside to play and the tin soldier is swallowed by a fish and travels through the water inside its belly, pining for his little ballerina all the while, and then the fish is caught and served and he ends up back at the house and the room where he belongs and she's still there, still beautiful with her one leg, and nothing has changed even though he ran off with a fish for a while and he's just so happy to be home and to be able to see her again, but then the little boy throws him on the fire."

"Jesus, haha."

"But a gust of wind catches the paper ballerina and she goes in the fire too, and in the morning all that's left of them is a little, sooty tin heart."

"Well, that's a downer."

"Mmm. At least they got to have one blazing moment together."

Richard frowned. "Well, if he'd said something, maybe they could have had more? What's she, a mind reader?"

Jared smiled a little. "Maybe he tried a few times and it didn't work."

"Uh, thought you just said he never told her."

Jared cleared his throat. "A lot of Andersen's fairy tales are quite sad, unrequited love stories. The Little Mermaid is another one. Disney changed it up a lot."

"Yeah, well," Richard shrugged. "he was a depressed red haired gay dude living in 1800s Denmark, I'm sure he spent a lot of time pining after whatever equivalent they had of Mads Mikkelsen at the time. Hm." Jared smiled a little. "What?"

"I love that you know stuff like that."

"What uh. What stuff? Gay stuff?" Richard frowned.

Jared laughed. "No, silly. It's just, a lot of programmers, they know just their own field. You know, you know, history and literature and language stuff too."

"I like to read," Richard said, almost a little defensively.

"I know, Richard. It's a very attractive quality."

"Hu," Richard mumbled. "minority opinion."

"We can go back to that ancient observatory," Jared said. "you loved that."

"Nah," Richard said. "let's go on a little day trip. It's a nice day. Nice uh, weather."

"A day trip? Where?"

Richard bit his lip. "Do you have your binoculars with you?"

Richard consulted his phone and they found a bus stop and a bus that took them a few miles outside the city centre, to the shore. It was a little windy and bracing and several people were flying kites.

"Over there's Sweden," Richard said, pointing out into the horizon. Jared couldn't really see anything. "there's a bridge that goes all the way over the water. You can drive there."

"We could rent a car," Jared suggested.

"Hmm, maybe. Anyway let's uh, this direction." Richard pulled up his hoodie to protect his face from the wind and determinedly set off, looking at his phone before sticking it in his pocket. Jared followed. Oh, it was nice seeing him like this, so engaged and assertive, just like old times. They stuck to a trail and suddenly Jared grabbed Richard's arm, stopped him, gasped. 

"Richard," he whispered and pointed at the reeds.

"Huh?"

"Look, look. Look where I'm pointing." Jared gave him his binoculars. Richard took them and realised a speckled bird was walking inbetween the reeds, well camouflaged. 

"Heh! What kind is it?"

"Some kind of heron," Jared said, taking a picture. "I haven't seen it before. Oh! Oh how exciting!"

"This is a bird reservation," Richard said proudly.

"What?"

"Yeah, there are tons of different species here, it's a protected area."

"You... you found this for me?"

Richard shrugged. "Uh yeah I thought you might uh enjoy it." Jared's lip started wobbling and Richard looked a little horrified, grabbed his arm. "Let's uh, let's walk further down here, there are supposed to be like some rare kinds hiding out as well."

It was a successful trip. Jared photographed and made notes on twenty-one species, some of which he recognised and some he didn't, but then a fellow birder, an older guy who noticed what they were doing, came over to chat and helped him identify the rest with the help of Wikipedia's language option. Richard asked to borrow the binoculars several times and Jared made a note that he would gift him a pair as soon as possible. Something really nice but light weight. Better than the little foldable ones Jared kept in his backpack. After a few hours of hiking they decided to turn back and find the bus stop, and they passed a nice cafe on the way and realised they were starving so they walked inside. 

"These are famous, right?" Jared asked the server as she plated his toppings-laden open sandwich.

"Yes, famous Danish specialty," she replied, smiling. "smørrebrød."

"What?" Richard said. "Smore... broh?"

She laughed a pealing laughter. "Close enough."

"How do you eat them?"

"Depends on how drunk you are," she said. "knife and fork for civilised occasions."

They were good and very filling. Jared was happy to see Richard clean his plate. "This has been a perfect day," he said, leaning in a little, hands folded. 

"Yeah it's been fun," Richard agreed. "I like it here."

"We could stay for a while," Jared said. "we could find an AirBnB instead of a hotel. Save some money, make our own food. Maybe see the rest of Scandinavia?"

Richard grimaced a little and looked him in the eye. "I'm flying out tomorrow."

"What?" 

Richard cleared his throat. "Uh. Yeah."

"Oh. Um. Where?"

"South. Going south."

"Oh," Jared said, sitting back. He wasn't going to tell him more than that? He couldn't have told him this a little earlier? He felt a stab of disappointment. 

Richard attempted a smile. "You should uhh, if you wanna like see Sweden, you should go, Jared. Um."

"Maybe," Jared said. "going south sounds nice too?"

"Hmm," Richard said. "do you think it would be like, too much to have another one? Like I'm full but it was good. Share one with me?"

*

The next morning Richard had hugged Jared, thanked him for a fun time - it really had been a good couple of weeks - and gone to the airport to travel onwards to Spain, to Madrid. He swiped through his gallery on the train, looked at the pictures he'd taken of buildings and statues and paintings and nature, some of Jared, some awkward selfies of the both of them. Jared's selfie smile was very gawky, his mild, close-lipped smile, upwards-turning eyebrows and wide eyes making him look a little terrified. Like he was posing for a blackmailer. Richard smiled involuntarily, wondered what kind of look he was going for in his head. He was a lot more natural on the few occasions Richard had caught him unaware, or just spontaneously asked for a photo. They'd met a tiny, tiny black dog in Amsterdam and Jared had gone to pieces over it, telling the amused and patient owner "I literally cannot believe what I'm seeing," and Richard had snapped a photo of him, on his knees on the sidewalk, playing with the dog, and Jared had just looked up to see what he was doing and he'd caught him looking up at him like that, wide natural smile, tiny dog standing up with his forepaws on Jared's thighs. Richard chewed his bottom lip and made the photo his phone wallpaper. Whatever, wasn't like anyone would ever know. 

*

It was warm in Madrid. Richard was down to his last clean T-shirt and realised he needed to get some laundry done as soon as possible. He checked into a youth hostel - he was still okay for money but probably a good idea to try and be a little frugal. He kind of regretted it that night. He'd booked a single room but the walls were like paper and the youths talked and played guitar until five in the morning. The next morning he was kind of exhausted and in the mood to look at some art, so he went to the Prado for a quiet day. It was huge and impressive and he stopped in front of a very familiar painting, Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son. Jared had a copy in his bedroom, it had freaked him the fuck out the first time he saw it. Smiling, he snapped a picture of it and sent it to Jared. _Found your painting_ he wrote. Then, _How are you doing?_

He looked at his phone expectantly. Jared was the most conscientious text-replier he had ever met. But Jared didn't reply. Richard frowned a little, put his phone away. He spent some more time looking at the artworks, then decided he'd go to the cafe and get something to eat. He got a coffee and a slice of cake and looked around to see if there was a free spot to sit, and nearly spilt his coffee all over himself when he realised that staring up at him from a table with wide eyes, parted lips, a cup of tea in his hand and halfway up to his mouth, was one Jared Dunn.


	5. Zanahorias Alinadas

"Oh! Richard! What a surprise!" Jared said, beaming, getting up from his seat.

"What in- what the- what the FUCK, Jared?"

"Talk about coincidence!" Jared grinned.

"Co-coincidence? This is uh this is a coincidence?"

"Well what else would it be? Would you like to sit down, Richard?"

Richard was still holding his coffee and cake and both were vibrating from how much he wanted to gesticulate. He slammed them both down on the table in front of Jared.

"You're telling me you didn't know I'd be here?"

"How could I? You didn't tell me where you were going."

"You- I-" Richard wracked his brain. No, he hadn't told him, he'd deliberately not told him. He'd booked his flight while Jared was in the shower. His phone and laptop were both password protected. And he changed those up regularly. He- the text message? The picture he'd sent? Not that he thought even Jared would be able to get from Copenhagen to Madrid in the space of half an hour, but it was the only clue he knew for sure he'd provided. "did uuh did you see my message?"

Jared frowned. "What message Richard?" He got his phone out and opened his message app. "I don't have any new messages from you."

Richard grabbed his phone and looked at it. The last message from him was a "where are you" after they lost each other in the Van Gogh museum. 

"I sent them, I sent, look-" Richard got his phone out and showed him. Jared pinked a little. 

"Oh," he said.

"Yeah that's right," Richard said and pulled his phone back, glanced over at it, and squeaked like a mouse. He had, with his stupid shaky nervous upset hands, managed to close the message app before he passed the phone to Jared and had instead just showed him the wallpaper photo of himself. "um uh that's uh that's randomised there was a aaAAH a OS update like yesterday and uh it does that now it's random"

"Oh, Richard, I'm flattered," Jared said, leaning in, looking all flushed and conspiratorial. He swiped on his phone and and showed him his own phone background, which was a picture of Richard in the Round Tower in Copenhagen, smiling big. He'd told Jared all about its history as an observatory from the 1600s that drew visitors from all over Europe and Jared had listened so patiently he couldn't exactly refuse a picture when he asked. "see? Nothing to be embarrassed about."

Richard guessed Jared meant well but he was, if possible, even more mortified by that.

"Wuh. Why. Why did you come here, Jared."

"Well, I thought about what you said about going south and figured I could do with some sun, and you know Goya is my favourite artist so I figured, if I go to Madrid I'll be able to see all my favourite paintings in real life!"

"How long are you staying?"

"Four days, then I fly out," Jared smiled.

"Oh uh. Five. Days. For me." Richard suddenly felt exhausted. He sat down on the chair in front of Jared. "Um, like, I'm, sorry, it's just really weird seeing you here."

"I understand," Jared said. 

"Where are you staying," Richard asked, squinting at him.

"Oh," Jared said in an excited voice and got his phone out again, showed him an AirBnB listing. "I thought I'd splurge on my last few days in Europe." 

Richard looked at the pictures. It was a penthouse apartment with a roof terrace, a beautiful tiled bathroom and a very comfortable looking double bed. "God, that looks nice."

"Where are you staying?" Jared asked. 

"Uh, somewhere shit and noisy. I barely got a moment's sleep last night."

"We could go back to my place if you wanted to nap?" Jared said. "I'd like to see the Goyas first though."

Richard stuck his fork into his cake. "Thanks, Jared. Um. I'll show you where they are."

* 

A few hours later Richard was deep asleep on the double bed in Jared's penthouse and Jared was on the balcony playing with his phone. He honestly hadn't had any idea how he'd attempt to find Richard but then he'd sent him the Goya picture and he'd jumped in a taxi and hauled ass over to the Prado and went to sit down in the cafe. Consciously or not Richard had his little museum rituals, Jared had discovered. Exhaust himself looking at as many rooms as possible, then treat himself to coffee and cake in the cafe. So he'd sat down in the cafe, hoping he wasn't too late, and waited. And he'd remembered to delete the messages from Richard. 

He wasn't sure how Richard felt. He really didn't want Richard to be angry with him. He decided he'd give him a little space. It had been great spending every day together these past couple of weeks, but even just being able to check in with him over dinner would be... well, it would be okay. It would be enough.

After having slept for three hours Richard came padding out on the balcony, yawning. Jared had almost finished his copy of the latest Celeste Ng. He smiled up at him. "Did you have a nice rest?"

"Yes I did."

"If you like, we could maybe go for dinner tomorrow?"

"Yeah maybe." Richard scratched his head. "Um, I think I'll be heading out now."

Jared bit his tongue and smiled pleasantly. "Okay. Have fun. Call me if you want to grab something to eat."

Jared spent the night on his own, taking in the architecture, had a nice drink at a bar. Two cute Spanish girls came over to talk to him, fawning over his height. They convinced him to order tapas, saying that was the real Spanish experience, he explained he was a vegetarian and they nodded enthusiatically and ordered from the menu in rapid-fire Spanish. He ate fried potato cubes in rich tomato sauce and omelette and thin onion rings, but his favourite thing was, to his surprise, marinated carrot slices. He made Elena and Sofia write down the name of them in his notes app so he could try making them at home - zanahorias alinadas. It was pretty nice chatting with them but he gently refused the offer to go out dancing and went back to the apartment. He looked at his phone and there was a missed call from Richard. Damn it, he hadn't been able to hear it in the bar. It was too late to call back, but he'd do so first thing in the morning. Close to one at night he reached the apartment building and noticed a homeless guy huddled over outside it. Jared's heart ached a little and he found a couple of euro coins in his pocket.

"Hey," he said mildly. The guy looked up. "Richard??"

"Oh uhh um. Tonight they played the Macarena twenty seven times in a row over at the youth hostel. Can I crash on your couch man?"

The couch in the apartment was really too small and hard to sleep on, so Jared suggested he get some blankets and sleep on the floor. After some bickering over who would give up the bed Richard insisted they both go sleep on it, so that's what they did. 

*

Richard woke up a little disoriented and realised he was - touching somebody?? He drew his hand back from where it had been resting on Jared's flat stomach like he'd been burnt. 

"Jared?" he whispered but Jared, thank you God Jesus Allah and every single Hindu deity was asleep. He got up and made himself an espresso, took it out on the balcony. He still hadn't been able to really process Jared just showing up like that. There was a reason why he hadn't invited him to Madrid, even though he knew for sure he'd come. He had the Erlich mission, but above all that, he felt a need to prove he'd be okay without Jared running in front of him like a curling player and clearing the way. Although, he guessed, this trip hadn't really been like that. Jared was a pretty good guy to travel with because it was a kind of, fifty fifty thing? They both suggested places to go, they both paid for tickets and meals, he wasn't afraid of silences and conversation was always comfortable. Maybe what he really needed to prove to himself was he'd be okay without Jared full stop. Now Pied Piper was over, and soon their trip would be over, and then he'd be just a... guy, and his and Jared's friendship would fade and become occasional and they'd see each other less and less and maybe just be reduced to the odd mutual status update like on Facebook and to be honest, that fucking hurt. Richard suddenly felt like crying. Yeah okay, that wouldn't do. He went to find his backpack and got out his notebook and a pen, distracted himself with looking at Erlich's notes even though he almost knew them by heart.

Jared emerged and joined him on the balcony, blinking, hair sticking out like Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes. Richard smiled at him and he smiled back.

"Buenas dias," Jared said and stretched. 

"Hey."

"Did you sleep okay? Oh, I hope my presence didn't disturb you!"

"I slept great," Richard sighed. "you um, you seemed to get to sleep okay too?"

Jared smiled a little shyly. "Yes, Richard. What have you got there?"

Richard sighed, then he read aloud. "'Madrid. These people will straight up fuck bulls. I can respect that. They also paint wild shit and dance hard.' Erlich wrote that. I found a travel itinerary he wrote and I've been following that."

"Oh," Jared said. "that explains a few things."

"I've been showing his picture around the places we visited but I haven't had any bites. I'm not sure what I was thinking, it would have been at least two years ago he was here."

"Well," Jared said gently. "he's a very memorable individual."

Richard swallowed hard and then thought, fuck it, it's only three more days, only three more days. "If uuh. If um. It's okay with you. Like, I'm not going back to the youth hostel. Uh. If, only if, it's cool with you, do you think I could like. Move in. Uh."

Jared beamed at him, smiled so hard the grooves of his face almost made him look a little skull-like. Not a wholly unexpected reaction but Richard still felt a little relief. "Oh! Well! Of course! Mi AirBnB es su AirBnB Richard!"

Richard smiled and touched his neck and he noticed Jared's eyes follow the movement. In the basement of his mind, alongside the Ark of the Covenant and the Event and all the other shit he stowed away, was also a gaffa-taped together box labelled "Jared's feelings for me". With only three days remaining before Jared left, maybe it was about time he addressed it.


	6. Bocadillos

Jared and Richard looked up at the Cervantes monument at the Plaza de Espana with statues of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in front.

Jared nudged Richard a little. "That's like us, isn't it? The noble knight and his trusty squire." 

"The world's biggest loser and the dude that inexplicably still wants to hang out with him? Yeah."

"Oh, Richard, don't say things like that! You-" 

"Yeah, yeah," Richard said, regretting the comment. Jared always got all indignant at his self-deprecation. He pointed at a peak in a nearby park. "let’s go up there." 

"Shouldn’t we grab some lunch first?"

"We could just bring some sandwiches?"

Jared looked delighted. "A picnic!" 

They stopped by a cafe for supplies before heading up. Richard read all the plaques, occasionally busting out his phone to translate them. "This is an ancient Egyptian temple that was dismantled and rebuilt here in Spain in 1972. It was a gift from Egypt after Spain stepped up and helped preserve ancient sites during the building of the Aswan High Dam, which crosses the Nile. Fuck, isn't that amazing?"

"How old is it?"

"Built 200 BC. More than two thousand years." Richard smiled awed at it. "And here it is, in a public park in Spain."

They walked up to the peak and looked out over the city. It was a bright, warm day and everything looked all fuzzy at the edges. Jared tried to take a panorama picture on his phone. Then they found a patch of grass to sit down on and Jared handed Richard his chorizo bocadillo before unwrapping his own vegetarian bocadillo. They’d also grabbed some bottled water and chips. 

"What a view," Jared said.

"It’s super nice. I really like it here. I’ve been thinking, maybe I should just, like, move, you know? I never pictured living anywhere outside the states but with the way things are now…"

"A year abroad would be fun," Jared said. "I always wanted to when I was younger."

"What are you going to do when you get back?"

Jared sighed. "I haven’t really thought about it in specifics. But I’d like to do something meaningful. I hated working at Hooli, Richard. You showed me it’s not necessary to dread going to work every day, you can go with a hop and a skip and a song in your heart. I want to find a job that makes me happy." 

"Well, you’ll be okay. Anyone would be lucky to have you. Uh. Or like. Anywhere. Um. Uh. Hey, look, look at that, what bird is that?"

* * *

Jared woke up, sunlight escaping through the curtains to dapple his face. He looked over at Richard. Richard had drifted a little closer to him during the night and was sleeping on his side, lips slightly parted. His face was textured with fresh stubble and his curls were all messy. Jared's heart ached a little. It was too much, really, sharing this closeness and intimacy with Richard. Too close to his most pathetically domestic and romantic fantasies. Richard's face twitched a little, he blinked and focussed, smiled a small smile.

"Uh, hey, morning."

"Good morning Richard." 

Richard kind of snorted, then he reached a hand out and mussed Jared's hair. "What the fuck happened to your hair? It's like, so wild."

Jared's face felt a little hot. "I usually use a lot of pomade to make it lie down. It's um. Thick."

"I'm not like- vain? But I think my one look-based fear in life is going bald."

"Show me," Jared said, shifted a little closer, arms tight against his chest. Richard ducked towards him and Jared gently touched the top of his head, inspecting. His curls were soft. "you're good."

Richard shifted and stretched. "We should probably get up, not lie in bed and play with each others hair all day." He got up, headed for the bathroom.

"You started it," Jared giggled. He felt a little giddy. "Richard."

"Hm?" Richard stopped and turned. 

"Are you still annoyed we ran into each other again?"

Richard smiled, shook his head. "No, Jared. I'm glad."

He disappeared into the bathroom and Jared looked after him, grasped at the sheets. He'd told Abby, Gloria's granddaughter, he'd given up on whatever hope he'd once harboured of something happening between him and Richard, but... he really felt they'd grown closer during this trip. It was like the old times, in a way, in the heyday of Pied Piper and the heyday of their friendship, when Richard would creep into the server room and they'd sit together on Jared's foldout bed and drink tea and Richard would tell him all about his anxieties and fears and hopes and dreams for the company and the technology. Jared felt sure nobody else got to see that side of him and he loved being confided in, loved being trusted with Richard's secrets and Richard's vulnerability, oh he'd been so proud, so _smug_. He hadn't really handled it well when Richard had started drifting away from him and when he couldn’t have that anymore. Jared was sad about the way Pied Piper ended, of course he was, but he was so, so proud of the way Richard had handled it. In awe, really. He'd sacrificed his company, his creation, his fortune and his reputation for what was right. In spite of it all, Jared was profoundly happy and grateful he'd got to be a part of Pied Piper, that he'd got to know and love Richard Hendricks. 

Richard walked out of the bathroom, wearing a towel, hair wet. "All yours."

* * *

On their last day together in Madrid Jared wanted to go see a flamenco show. Richard agreed. It seemed a little corny and touristy but Jared was excited about it. He hadn't really... over the past couple of days they'd been... weirdly like, comfortable with each other? Physically? Richard wasn't super used to sleeping next to another person but it was okay with Jared, it was like fine. Nice, even. And that probably meant something. And he'd meant, he'd intended, to maybe broach the subject of... their whole thing. What it was and what it could... maybe be. He just hadn't gotten around to it. So the least he could do was go with him to watch some Spanish people dance. 

The show kicked off with a woman stomping around on stage to dramatic and sad music in a tight, long dress. They were sat at a small round table, watching, sharing a caraf of red wine Richard thought was kind of gross, but he kept sipping it anyway to like, look sophisticated. The woman eventually finished her bit and they all clapped, then some handsome dude with his shirt unbuttoned half the way down stepped on stage to dance. Jared watched him with rapt attention, his hand fluttering at his long neck. He was clearly enjoying himself. Richard sulkingly sipped on his wine again. Okay, the guy was good, but dial it back, maybe. True, Richard had always been a little uncomfortable with the burning laser beam of Jared's attention, but he sure as hell didn't enjoy it being directed towards somebody else either. He never liked seeing him with the girls that clung to him like static. Their biggest fight was because of his shifting allegiance to Gwart. And now Richard could barely enjoy the show for Jared's obvious boner for this young Antonio Banderas bastard.

"Oh, isn't it marvellous!" Jared said, grinning and clapping enthusiastically.

"Yeah they're uh, they're good."

"Now, we would like to invite a volunteer from the room," one of the dancers said into the microphone. 

Jared gasped and turned to Richard. "You should do it," he said, wild-eyed.

Richard's petty possessiveness gave way to a sudden stab of complete panic. "What the fuck? No," he said.

"Oh my god, Richard, you would be glorious up there." Jared's hand shot up and Richard grabbed it, wrestled it to the table. 

"No!" he hissed. "No, Jared!"

"You, senor?" the dancer asked Jared.

Richard shook his head. "No, no. Not interested. Gracias. No gracias."

After the show was over they walked through the warm night and Jared wouldn't stop chattering about the fucking flamenco.

"I really think you should try flamenco dancing, Richard. Gosh, when I was watching that dancer earlier, all I could think of is how magnificent you would be at it."

"He was like some twenty five year old Spanish hunk in a ponytail, how the hell did you make that connection?"

"Well it's not about the looks, silly!" Jared grinned. "It's more about the energy, the passion!"

"Jesus Christ, Jared, how much did you have to drink? I'm not going to learn the flamenco!"

"Oh Richard, won't you at least consider it? I feel like it would really..." Jared gesticulated, trying to find the right phrase. "unlock your body."

Richard turned bright red. "I want my body to stay locked, thanks."

Jared's shoulders slumped a little. "Your body just has such a potential for dance, I know it."

"Can we stop talking about my body?"

They turned into a little square. A guy was playing the guitar. Some tourists were filming him on their phone, some were listening appreciatively, and a few couples were dancing to the music. 

"Isn't that beautiful," Jared said.

"Yeah it's really good," Richard said. "uh."

They stopped to listen and Richard looked up at Jared. He was looking starry-eyed at the guitarist now, and Richard took a second look at him and guessed he was a good looking dude too if you liked swarthy European fuckboys with guitars, and the same - annoyance Richard had felt during the flamenco show reared its ugly head again. What the hell was it with Jared and these Spanish guys? Good thing he was going home in the morning. Richard had to admit the music was pretty good, it was one of those melancholy guitar picking things that just sounded like heartache and suffering and when will my husband return from the war. Jared was smiling secretly, looking at that stupid oily guitar genius, but at least he wasn't - oh, no, there it came, his big hand travelled up to clutch at his throat again. Acting without thinking, Richard stepped in front of him, and Jared looked at him, tilted his head a little quizzically.

"Do you wanna uh."

Jared smiled a confused smile and Richard didn't know how to finish that sentence without throwing up on Jared's shoes so he just placed his hands at Jared's waist and pulled him closer. Jared gasped but responded, big hands a little unsurely coming to rest on Richard's shoulders, blue eyes boring into Richard. Ha. That's right guitar boy, just provide background noise like you're supposed to. He felt a little light headed, swaying slowly with Jared, his body close and warm. he could feel his hands sweating as they clutched onto the nice fabric of Jared's shirt. Jared had kind of broad shoulders but his waist was like, thin. He was fucking tall though. Obviously he knew, intellectually, Jared was Tall, that was like his main physical characteristic, but standing this close it kind of really hit home. Every time he looked up at him he stared back with a slightly incredulous smile on his lips. The song ended and there was applause, and Richard let Jared go, a little reluctantly.

"Richard," he said in a kind of intimate, quivering hush. He licked his lips. "you know, right? You could have. If you wanted, you could have- anything you-" 

"Okay uh yeah um like. Umm. Well ahhh, thank youu, for the dance, milord," he said with a dumb flourish of his hand and a dumber giggle. He turned sharply on his heel to leave a five euro note in the guitar player's case.

Going to bed that night was a little awkward. There was almost like an expectation there, an energy, something beating and alive between them. It was in the charged way Jared looked at him, the way he seemed more conscious with his movements, more fluid? Or was it just Richard's imagination and projection as Jared's half-finished offer had sent his brain spiraling into a could I, would I crisis more effectively than any of the affection Jared had showered him with during the past six years had? He hadn't even slept with anyone in two years (and that had, apparently, been "awful"), his sole experience with another guy was getting shitface drunk at a college party and fooling around with some dude who threatened to beat him up if he told anyone when they woke up the next morning. As if he would have. What if he like, reached out to Jared right now, and Jared reached back and Reverse Midas Richard turned everything to shit as usual? What a dumb thing to go ahead with their last night together. Richard turned away on his side and closed his eyes tight.

*

The next morning, when Richard woke up, Jared was already packed and dressed. They had breakfast together on the balcony and Richard's leg kept jiggling. He wondered if it would be really weird to ask him to stay. He'd said, anything. Anything Richard wanted. 

"Could you change your flight if you wanted to?" Richard blurted out.

Jared frowned. "No, I think there's a 24 hour cutoff. Why?"

"No reason. Just uh, curious."

There was a long pause. "Well, I better get going."

"Yeah uh."

Jared got up to put his shoes and backpack on. Richard trailed after him, then he got up on the balls of his feet and pulled him into a hug. Jared leaned down and hugged back. "It's uh. Been really fun. I kind of. Um. Nevermind."

"What?" Jared said into his shoulder.

"Umm. When I get back, we'll talk, okay? Like, really. Um, I, uh. Like, you and me, uh, hashing it out, uh. Fuck. Can we do that?"

"Of course, Richard." Jared smiled a little, then leaned in and kissed Richard's cheek, very lightly. "See you."

"See you," Richard said. "safe travels."

Jared smiled and walked away. Richard's hand came up to his cheek, his fingertips touching where Jared had kissed him as if he tried to press the kiss into his skin and keep it. He had the ominous, deeply familiar feeling he'd just fucked up.


	7. Chicken Kiev

Richard Hendricks was not the kind of man who ran after someone down the hallway of an apartment building in his socks like Bridget fucking Jones, or even worse, raced to the airport to declare his love, or pulled any other twee 2000s London set romcom move. So after Jared left he went back to the balcony and drank another cup of coffee. Then he quietly packed together his things. He found Jared's fold-up binoculars abandoned under the bed - under _their_ bed, he remembered - and put them in his backpack too. He left the AirBnB key in the key box outside the door, and went off to find a cheap hotel that was at least a few steps above a youth hostel. 

After checking in to a decent-seeming two-star he went back out and looked at his maps app. He went to the Casa de Campo park, started walking. It was supposed to be the biggest park in the city. He tried remembering the things Jared had taught him. Looking for water. Looking for movement. Patience. The first birds he saw were so common even he could easily identify them, a magpie and a blue tit. Walking around and looking through Jared's binoculars he found some he hadn't seen before, a small one with a weird kind of punk haircut, and a bigger one that was green and had a red crest. He took pictures, made sure they were pretty clear. He went down to the water where some geese with the most severe eyemakeup he'd seen in his life were sailing around. He grinned. Jared would have got a kick out of them. 

"Um uh excuse me?" he asked a young couple feeding ducks. She had on a red jacket and her brown hair was gathered in a french braid, he was fresh-faced and skinny. "What uh, what are those called?" He pointed to the fancy geese.

"Gansos de Nilo," the girl replied. "like, geese from the Nile?"

"Oh, like uh, Egypt? Because of the..." He gestured around his eyes. She smiled and nodded. "That is so cool. I like uh, birds, too."

"American?"

"Yeah uh." Richard braced himself a little, hoped she wouldn't ask him about Donald Trump. That would be considered rude, right? Pointing out Donald Trump was his president to his face?

"You like Madrid?"

"Yeah it's uh, it's beautiful, great uh." He gestured towards them. "And uh romantic. Best with uh, with someone you care about, right? Um. Sorry, I uh, I don't know what I'm saying."

"Go to a bar tonight," the guy told him. "find pretty Spanish girl. Prettiest girls in the world." His girlfriend giggled and he kissed her cheek. Richard wondered what the fuck it was like to be like that. Just like loved up and carefree and unencumbered with anxiety. He'd turned every relationship, even being generous with the definition, he'd ever had into a shitshow. Jared had been wrong. Jared wasn't Sancho Panza. He was Don Quixote, because managing to look at Richard and see someone wonderful was about on par with interpreting a windmill as a murderous giant. Richard wasn't sure who he was in the story. Maybe the donkey.

"Yeah uh maybe I will? Thanks for the um, bird, help. Bye."

"Bye," they told him, waving.

Richard kind of lost track of time hiking in the park. He saw a few other birds and even a hare. When dusk approached he started walking towards where the GPS told him the exit was and it was almost dark when he got out. But getting to the hotel didn't take a lot of time, it was barely past eight when he got back, and he was restless. So he did go out to a bar and had a beer but it was kind of noisy and messy and unlike Jared girls didn't swarm to him, vying to make his night more interesting. Skinny, ugly and twitchy played about as well in Spain as in America he guessed. Not that he'd have been that interested either way. He was fixating now, he felt himself doing it, and he tried to stop, it was one of the reasons he'd gone to the bar. Going birdwatching had kind of been a fun activity and he could think about Jared in like a comfortable, distant way, but when he was stuck in the hotel room alone with his thoughts all he wanted to do was go over the last days with Jared in punishing detail. 

The next morning he got up from the hotel bed and took a taxi to the airport, getting on the flight to Bangkok. After a stopover in Germany he was still looking at another ten or so hours in the air. He got a complimentary drink and ugh it was more wine but at least it was something to keep himself occupied with. He wasn't sure if it was the drink or the hum of the plane or what, but he couldn't stop fucking thinking about - Jared's warm body inches away from his, the way he'd flushed when Richard had mussed his hair that morning, the way he'd danced with Richard like he was the only guy on the planet - and found himself getting so uncomfortably, inappropriately excited he covered himself with the complimentary blanket, crossed his legs, put on the sleeping mask and pretended to sleep. He tried doing equations in his head so he would not think about that stupid "you could have anything" speech. He could have though, couldn't he? Why had he been so fucking afraid? It was _Jared,_ for fuck's sake. He was as educational and non-judgemental as Kermit the Frog. He'd probably teach Richard a song about blowjob techniques before he even had to try it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

An air stewardess gently shook his shoulder when it was time to eat dinner and he choked on his own drool and started coughing. He'd had a fucking... vivid dream where his hand was lightly on Jared's throat and Jared's mouth was red and open and said "anything, anything you want Richard" and Jesus Christ he was hard. He folded the little tray table down and accepted the little play set meal. A box of chicken kiev and rice, a box of some vegetables, a little wrapped up set of plastic cutlery, a bread roll, a tiny butter packet, a fruit cup and a tiny chocolate muffin. He assembled it as well as he could. Luckily, nothing about the meal was remotely sexy.

On hour six of the flight Richard felt sick with longing and his own stupidity and his own cowardice, and decided he'd cut his vacation short. Like, he couldn't exactly go to Bangkok and turn around, he'd still like to experience it at least, but one week tops and then he was going back to San Francisco. They could all laugh at him in the street, he didn't give a fuck. He'd... grow a beard. He needed to talk to Jared before somebody better than Richard, ie at least 75% of the human population between 18 and 50 (or, well, it was Jared, maybe the cutoff point was like 80), swooped in and cured Jared of his devotion to him. Or convinced him to see an ophthalmologist.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is nine thirty AM local time and we will be serving breakfast before coming in for landing in one hour." Richard twitched uncomfortably awake as the lights in the plane were turned on and the air stewards walked up with coffee, tea, juice and rolls. He felt drained, just empty and weird. His joints all hurt. At least his erection had finally fucked off. 

He felt like shit disembarking, waiting for his backpack at the luggage carousel, and catching the train from Suvarnabhumi airport into the city centre. He got out of the train station and almost took a step back. The heat and humidity was a shock to the system. San Francisco could be scorching but it felt like... drier. It was also noisy and busy and really unfamiliar. If he hadn't been so fucking exhausted from the neverending flight he might have found it thrilling, but as it stood he really just wanted to find a decent hotel, quick. He wished he'd done some research beforehand, since when was he this sloppy? Richard sighed, looked around, wondering where the fuck to go. He opened his map app on his phone but it appeared to have translated itself into Thai. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He squinted at the writing and wondered if it would work if he put "hotel" in the search when a big hand landed on his shoulder and he jumped.

"I can't believe it! Richard!" Richard looked up and there was... Jared. He blinked a couple of times to make sure he wasn't hallucinating from jet lag and horniness. Maybe that was a thing. Maybe they'd name the condition after him. 

"Juh? Jared? Uhh?" He turned towards him. Jared was wearing a souvenir T-shirt and cargo shorts and sandals. He looked goofy. He looked fucking hot.

"How do we keep running in to each other like this?" Jared said, wringing his hands. "I gotta hug."

Jared smiled big and opened his arms, and Richard grabbed onto his "Beautiful Bangkok" T-shirt with both hands, pulled him down and kissed his mouth hard.


	8. Room Service

Jared pulled away from Richard, gasped, eyes so round they looked like they were ready to roll out of his head. 

"Um," Richard said, suddenly wondering if he'd somehow managed to completely misread the whole oh Richard anything you want spiel, if that was just his insane sexual frustration terraforming itself into him seeing things which were patently not there. But then Jared leaned back in and kissed him again and he was, his body was literally shuddering, like a plucked string, and Richard's dumb fumbly hands travelled from Jared's face to his hair and then found purchase on his T-shirt again, just clutching at the material. 

"Can we uh. Can we go..."

"My hotel is right around the corner," Jared whispered. 

"Yeah, cool. Cool uh. Let's."

Richard followed Jared down a busy street and into a hotel, and they crowded into the narrow elevator. Jared pressed the button for the ninth floor. 

"Oh, Richard, I can't believe you're here, I-"

"Save it, Jared." Richard put his arms around his waist and Jared made a surprised noise. "I don't really care how, or why. All I know it it's been like two days, but I still missed you."

Jared's mouth fell open and then he put his hands on Richard's face, leaned down and kissed him all the way up to the ninth floor.

Jared fumbled with the key card but finally got the damn door open, and Richard dumped his backpack on the floor and kicked off his shoes. It wasn't a very big room but it was bright, a huge window taking up most of the space on one wall and looking out over the city, and it was dominated by a double bed with clean, starched white sheets. They fell down together on it, all knees and elbows and "sorry, sorry"s, before they found each others mouths again and Richard's hand was hard in Jared's impossible, messy, travel hair, and Jared put one leg inbetween Richard's.

"Oh gosh, wait a moment," Jared said, pulled away.

"No, no, no," Richard whined, pulled him back down over him with both arms.

Jared raised himself up on his elbows over Richard, tilting his head to kiss him, licked at his open mouth and Richard gasped. He smiled. "Just one moment, Richard." He disentangled himself from Richard, who made a frustrated groan, and got up, found the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the desk and raised an eyebrow. Well, Richard could live with that. He didn't think he'd ever gotten to use that sign for like, a sexy reason before. Jared opened the door and hung it on, then closed and locked it. "Okay."

"Wait uh, wait," Richard said, scooting forward to sit on the edge of the bed, _anything you wanted Richard_. "could you like, um."

"What?"

"Uh, I uh, I'd like to watch you undress for me? Would that like uh. Be okay."

Jared bit his lip, then pulled off his T-shirt. He was getting... like, he was still pretty pale, but the sun he'd been catching the last week was making him a little less ghostly. His nipples were round and pink and he was pretty hairless, his chest concaved a little, his belly rounded. Richard reached a hand down between his legs. He looked fucking good. Jared stepped out of his shorts and was left in his underwear, his erection very obvious behind the thin material. Richard's mouth watered a little. Jesus Christ. Jared stuck one of his giant hands down there and grasped himself and Richard just kind of made a noise, then he swallowed. "Take it off, Jared. Come on." Jared pulled his dick out and Richard gasped. Yeah, this was happening. Then he pulled his underwear all the way down and trailed his right hand up his body before placing it behind his head, let Richard look at him.

"Jesus. You uh. Fuck. Jared. You're um. Uh, really sexy? I- fuck."

Jared smiled a little shyly, his ears going a little pink, then he took a step forward and kneeled down in front of Richard. Richard spread his legs wide to let him come closer and reached out a hand to cradle the back of his head before leaning down for a long, sweet kiss. He moaned into his mouth a little when Jared's hands made their way up inside his shorts, stroking at his thighs.

"Richard, will you let me, will you permit me, to undress you?"

"Uh yeah, I guess, go for it."

Still kneeling, Jared grabbed onto the end of Richard's T-shirt and pulled it off over his head, Richard raising his arms a little. Then Richard lifted himself up on his hands, let Jared pull off his shorts and underwear. Jared almost a little reverently let his clothes fall to the floor. 

"Oh, Richard. Oh gosh. You're so beautiful." He looked up at him again, flushed, smiling, eyes very very blue. Richard suddenly felt panicky he was having another embarrassing, horny plane dream and someone was about to wake him to serve him gross box food so he leaned down again to kiss Jared softly, to taste him, to feel the silk and the heat and the wetness, ground himself in what was too good to not be real. Jared's hands stroked open-palmed at his thighs and then slid up to hold at his back. When they pulled apart again Jared panted a little, looking flushed. His eyes flicked down to Richard's erection, then up again.

"Oh, Richard," Jared whispered. "please may I?"

"Uhhhh," Richard said. "yeah man." Was he serious with that? He had to be.

Jared fell a little forward, arms travelling further in on the bed on both sides of Richard for purchase, and he kissed his chest. Then he kissed his way down to his stomach, placed open-mouthed, wet kisses on the soft insides of Richard's thighs. Then he bowed his head to sort of like - nuzzle? His face? Into Richard's crotch? Which Richard watched with some degree of disbelief. He let his tongue slide out and catch Richard's dick, licked it with a broad stroke from root to tip, before bowing his head and sliding it into his mouth. There was something so languid and Audrey-Horne-tongue-skills about it Richard suddenly gasped because he'd forgotten to breathe at all. He reached out a hand to gently hold the back of Jared's head as it bobbed up and uh, all, the way, down, so far Jared's nose nudged his stomach, and when Richard's other hand reached back to hold one of Jared's he looked up at Richard with his mouth full and the bluest eyes and he like - he _moaned?_ And the vibrations of that just made Richard's eyes roll back in his head and his head fall back and he tried to tug at Jared's hair, pull him off before he - but Jared ignored him, sped up if anything, and Richard tried real hard to remember how to speak English and managed to croak out a "Jared uh I'm gonna uhhhh" and then he did. He panted hard, stared at Jared, who pulled off and swallowed and wiped his slick mouth with the back of his hand, looked mischievious. 

"I'm sorry! Didn't you-"

"Oh, it's fine, Richard, don't worry."

Richard moved backwards on the bed until he could lie down and Jared got up from his knees, smiled almost a little unsurely, and Richard opened his arms and Jared beamed and climbed onto the bed and into Richard's embrace. They kissed again and Jared for sure tasted a little differently now, not unpleasant but different, and Richard felt a shudder of excitement at it. He also felt, like... grateful. And something else as well, something warmer and clingier and scarier. 

"Fuck, it could have been like this all along, huh?" he said.

Jared touched his nose to Richard's. "I can't believe it's happening at all. Oh, if you had any idea."

Jared's voice was conversational and level but his hard, leaking dick was pressing insistently into Richard's thigh. Richard suddenly felt generous.

"Have you ever had a fantasy about me?" Jared's eyes went completely round and he turned so bright red so quickly Richard burst out laughing. "I'll take that as a yes," he said, couldn't help but sound smug.

"Too many to count," Jared admitted.

"Okay uh, let's like, do one. What do you wanna do?"

Jared laughed. " _Richard!_ That's not necessary, anything at all you feel comfortable with is-"

"Come on, like, just make a suggestion."

Jared pressed his lips together for a moment. "Oh, Richard." he said in his most tender, tremulous voice, long fingers stroking at Richard's face. "Do you enjoy getting your ass eaten?"

*

"Okay uh. Ready uh." Richard stepped out of the hotel bathroom wet from his shower, holding a towel and drying his hair with it. Jared put away his phone and smiled. He was still hard, Richard noticed. It was, admittedly, difficult to keep feeling undesirable in the face of evidence like that. He'd never see himself as hot, probably, but hot to Jared? It seemed undeniable. Jared was lying with his back against the padded headrest and Richard lay down beside him, kissed him. 

"Why don't you straddle me," Jared whispered. "facing the door."

"Okay like uh..." Richard got up on his knees and then flung one leg across Jared's legs, and Jared shifted and slid downwards a little.

"Could you bend forward?" 

Richard did and Jared gasped. He was sure he saw Jared's dick twitch. 

"Oh goodness, Richard, oh gosh, you are - you are so callipygian -"

Richard laughed. "Yeah, okay, professor. Thanks." Then he gasped as Jared's enormous-feeling hands grabbed both of his buttocks and spread them apart and his tongue stroked wetly over his hole. 

Jared was gentle at first, clearly testing the waters, so to speak, but after a while his tongue was licking and swirling and _pushing_ and the sensation was mostly kind of weird but not unpleasant. Richard was half-hard again just from like, the concept, the situation, and the sight of Jared's hard dick inches from his face. Jared was clearly enjoying himself, he was making stuttery, whimpery noises and the hands that alternated between squeezing at Richard's buttocks or grabbing at his waist or even stroking the planes of his back were trembling more often than not. 

"uhh," Richard said as Jared basically started tongue fucking him and it felt, like, he could do this, he could do more of this. Without thinking he reached out to grab Jared's dick, his other hand flat on the mattress to keep his balance, and started jerking him off. The response was immediate. Jared pulled away to gasp "oh! You little minx!" before diving back in with even more enthusiasm. 

"Fuck," Richard said, sped up the movement of his hand. This was different. Jared was bigger than him, the angle was weird, the close up view- Richard gasped when Jared came and came, all over Richard's chest. 

Jared panted, face still buried in Richard's ass, then he lightly kissed the small of his back and stroked his sides and Richard got up. Well, guess he knew the answer to Jared's question now. That had been alright. 

"I'm like, dripping," Richard giggled. "hand me my towel."

*

They ordered room service and it took like forty minutes for it to arrive, by which time they'd forgotten and were rolling around on the bed again making out, Richard thrusting shallowly into Jared's fist, and the knock made Richard jump away and fall off the bed. 

"Room service," a cheery voice from the other side said.

"Goodness, Richard, are you alright?" Jared said, concerned.

"Yeah uh fine uh go get the food uh"

Jared got up, grabbed a robe from the bathroom and wrapped it around himself, and opened the door just enough to accept the boxes of food and bottles of water. It was pretty simple, a vegetarian noodle dish in some sweet-ish sauce, but Richard was ravenous. They sat cross-legged on the bed, eating. 

"Can't believe I didn't get fat on this trip yet," Richard said. "I've done nothing but eat."

"Same," Jared said and Richard giggled.

When they finished the noodle boxes Richard felt weirdly tired and sated and lay down and opened his arms, and Jared, seemingly feeling the same, put his head on Richard's shoulder and slung an arm over his waist. They were quiet together for a while. 

"I was going to cut my travels short," Richard finally said. "to go find you."

"Oh," Jared whispered.

"But now you're here uh. We should like, see South East Asia together. Follow Erlich's itinerary. What do you say?"

"I'd love to."

"So um, uh, Jared." Richard grinned. "Do you have like uhh other um things you uh wanna try with me? Like with me, specifically?"

Jared bit his lip, looked at him a little unsurely. He clearly had something in mind.

"Tell meee," Richard said.

"Oh no, no, Richard. I think it might be triggering for you. I should probably keep that one to myself."

"Um? Triggering? What is it?" Richard's mood shifted quick from playful to worried.

"Just, I think it's something you would, under current circumstances, find quite painful, that you might get mad at me for suggesting, or having thought about."

Richard frowned. "Uh? I wouldn't. Um. Like, well, just tell me, if I don't like it I'll just say no? Come on, tell me. Please."

Jared looked down. "Well. Do you still have your piper outfit?"

Richard hadn't laughed that hard in months. Maybe years.


	9. Green Mango

The view over Bangkok had changed from bright morning daylight to dusk. Richard was looking out over the city, his head on Jared's chest. "Should we like go outside again today?"

"Mmm. We'd have to get dressed."

"Come on, let's go get some dinner."

"Okay, Richard. Can I just ask you something first though?" Jared asked, ran his fingers through Richard's hair.

"Yeah?"

Jared took a deep breath, Richard's head rose and fell with his chest. "What changed?" 

Richard knew what he meant. Over the last six or so years Jared had told him he loved him in acts and words and Richard had barely known how to acknowledge it. "I don't know man. Uh. Gwart, maybe."

"Gwart?" Jared frowned.

"When you were with her... I think that's the first time I ever thought I'd really lose you," Richard said. Jared let his hand travel to Richard's back, fingertips circling slowly. "because... saying sorry didn't work. It was always enough to just say sorry and you'd forgive me, drop what you were doing and come back."

Jared cleared his throat. "I'm sorry for shooting you. I'm not sure I ever apologised for that."

"No, don't uh. Don't. Like. Yeah okay we fought and it sucked and whatever, but the point, the point is, I took you for granted, I figured you'd always be there. And then you weren't and I hated it and I was like... fixating a little bit. You're lucky I was so busy or I would have showed up outside the hacker hostel holding a boombox over my head."

Jared snorted. 

Richard sighed. "And I think, for the first time, I finally started thinking a little bit about what you wanted. Not too much. But. A little bit."

"You."

"Yeah. And uh. Being with you, these weeks, like not at work but, just... friends, you know?" He stuck a hand out flat. "Level. No... power imbalance. Made me think maybe I would like that. A lot. If I could work up the nerve."

Jared smiled. "You just stepped off a plane, kissed me and fucked me. You're not shy."

"Well, you're the only person in the world I'm pretty sure is going to like whatever trash I have to offer. God, it's... easy with you. Like, I always lived in my head more than my body? I'm- okay, like, I am smart, I'm skilled, blah blah blah, but when it comes to just... _existing_ with other people I am a complete fucking moron. Like it's just easier to avoid it all. But with you... I don't know. It's. How does the song go. Always a pleasure and never a chore."

"Oh, Richard," Jared whispered. "is it okay if I say it? You don't have to say it back."

Richard took a breath. "Uh. If you want."

Jared leaned forward a little. "I love you," he mumbled into Richard's hair. "I love you, I love you."

Richard didn't say it back, but he did raise his head and kiss Jared, and it was an articulate kiss.

*

By the time they got out it was pretty dark, but there were plenty of people in the streets and lots of activity. They found a street with stalls and ate sticky rice steamed in banana leaves, green mango and quail eggs. 

"This is so fucking good," Richard said. "this country rules."

Jared laughed. "Come on, let's go find a drink somewhere."

It took a while before they found somewhere that wasn't way too noisy for Richard, walking down Khaosan road. There were lots of tourists out, a lot of them pretty young and drunk. One time, in the crush, Jared grabbed Richard's hand so they wouldn't get separated and pulled him through the crowd. 

The bar was fairly crowded but not teeming, and Jared managed to sweep in and get a small table when some other patrons were leaving. Richard bought them a couple of beers. 

"When did you get here?" Richard said, setting one in front of Jared.

"Yesterday morning. I did a little walking around. Saw the 150 foot reclining Buddha, that was impressive."

"Oh yeah? Cool." Richard pulled his phone out, found his gallery and the photos he'd taken of Erlich's notes. "'Bangkok. City of smiles, drunk Australians, and luscious ladyboys. Perchance an opportunity to traverse the final frontier?'" Jared laughed. "'Also an excellent place to start to begin to study the teachings of the Buddha. Namaste.' I mean, I've truly made an effort to look for clues of Erlich, but with what I've got to work with-"

"Erlich?" a guy said behind Richard. "You friend of Erlich?"

"uh," Richard said and turned to look at a middle aged Thai guy.

"He leave behind huge bill. You his friend?"

"Actually, he owes us money too," Jared said, sensing trouble. "we're trying to track him down."

Richard went through his gallery, found Erlich's photo. "This guy? You know him?"

"Erlich Bachmann. Piece of shit. Buffalo." the guy said.

"Yes! That's him! When uh, when was he here?"

"Maybe two year ago? But I remember."

Richard's shoulders slumped. "Two years."

"That's really exciting though!" Jared said. "We're literally on his trail! Sir, um, do you know where he went next?"

"To hell, I hope," the guy said and walked away.

*

They spent more than a week in Bangkok. They didn't get any more information about Erlich, but they did go to a lot of temples, try a lot of different bars, Jared bought a book of Buddhist thought and Richard ate so much green mango Jared joked there'd be a nationwide shortage. And they spent a lot of time in the hotel room with the city view. 

They agreed to move onwards towards Phnom Penh, but there was one more attraction Richard wanted to see, and they booked a visit for the Jim Thompson house museum.

"He disappeared," Richard said. "just like Erlich."

"An unsolved mystery?" Jared smiled.

"Yeah, exactly." Richard shrugged. "He was this super rich American who was like instrumental in the Thai silk trade, and one day in 1967 he left a lunch party and just never came back. There was never any ransom made or a body found. I mean, most likely he was just mugged and killed or something, you know, but there's that uncertainty that keeps a mystery alive. No real closure." Richard looked down. "I mean... Erlich was a fucking idiot and he drove me up the wall some times but... I kind of loved the guy." 

"I know," Jared said, reaching out to stroke his arm. Richard bit his lip. 

"Man, I'm talking about him in the past tense. I'd just like to know he's okay. It's so fucking weird we never heard anything. You're telling me THAT guy isn't online to send a message?"

"Gavin spoke to him. He was in a temple. Maybe he has different values now. It wasn't that many years ago only a handful of people even had an email address, remember. It is possible to live without tech."

Richard took a deep breath. "I guess."

"I love him too."

Richard smiled at that. "He was so fucking mean to you."

"Mm, at first. But I think we were friends in the end."

"Did you know he beat up a kid for me once?"

"What?"

*

The trip from Bangkok to Phnom Penh was fun. They decided to take the scenic route and via train, tuk-tuk across the Thailand-Cambodia border, a bus (which didn't have a lot of leg room for Jared and they quietly moved to the back and Jared sat with his back to the window and his legs slung over Richard's lap for most of the stretch), a fun night at a hotel in Siem Reap, and then a speedboat they reached the Cambodian capital. Even though they spent most of the time on the move, it was just... nice. They alternated reading chapters from Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days out loud, they shared Richard's earbuds and listened to playlists, they talked about the times in the hacker hostel, they searched for stuff to do in Cambodia. There was this one moment, they were on the bus, they hadn't said anything for a while, Jared's legs were heavy on Richard's lap, the sun was bright outside, and they were listening to some indie playlist Jared had saved on his phone. And Richard was just - looking at Jared, and Jared was looking back, with that gentle smile of his, and a female singer came on, and the song was so fucking good. _One word from you and I would jump off of this ledge I'm on, baby / Tell me don't, so I can crawl back in._ And in that moment, Richard was completely happy, and present, and felt like the luckiest motherfucker on the planet.

Phnom Penh had a different atmosphere from Bangkok, and was a nice respite after its high energy, party vibe and crowds of backpackers. They found a decent hotel, they were on the eleventh floor this time, and they checked in and showered off old travel sweat and dust to make room for new. Jared was first in the shower, and when Richard came out from the bathroom Jared was on the bed and hadn't dressed at all, just looked up at him and say "hey there," with that beaming, irrepressible grin he had when he felt naughty and it was hot but also so fucking _cute_ so Richard just grinned back and climbed on the bed and made another attempt at a blowjob (after Jared had assured him it was perfectly fine to use his hand as well as his mouth, they'd avoided another incident and he was starting to like it). It proved to be successful.

*

About Phnom Penh, Erlich's notes said: _Another important stepping stone in what is sure to be a challenging road to enlightenment. I have wanted to see the Angkor Thom ever since I played the role of Ellia the dancing girl in Eternal Darkness on the GameCube._ This was possibly his least helpful note yet, especially considering Angkor Thom was nowhere near Phnom Penh and Jared had read an article about how the Cambodian government was limiting tourism there for preservational causes while researching how to get there and didn't want to go anymore. So they didn't. But the city had more than enough to keep them busy. Richard was surprised by like, how, hip it was? There were tons of coffee shops, vegan eateries (Jared was delighted), a bustling gay scene. One night they found a more old school backpacker place, sat down and had a very cheap vegetarian curry on simple wooden furniture near a wall covered with polaroid snaps of travellers and locals. 

"This is okay," Richard said, eating. "like, it's not the best thing we've had here, but it's fine."

Jared made a face. "I wanna go back to Vitking House tomorrow."

"Fine by me," Richard said, and took another sip of salty lemonade, his new obsession. He nearly spat it out all over the table when he looked up at the wall and saw, in the crowds of tiny polaroid faces, smiling and holding court at a table, a photo of Erlich.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song they listen to on the bus is [First Love/Late Spring](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCphVz0ZGns) by Mitski.


	10. Cau Dau Fu

Erlich wore his hair in a ponytail in the photo, was more tan than he'd been back home, he was looking over his shoulder at the person with the camera and smiling his crooked, open mouthed smile, and seated with him at the table was a long haired girl and a guy who both looked Cambodian, and a fourth person who was out of focus. Richard yanked it off the wall.

"Oh, are you allowed-" Jared said, but Richard got up and marched over to the guy manning the till. 

"Um, excuse me? Uh? Can- do you recognise this guy?"

The guy squinted. "No man, sorry." He took it off him and looked on the back. "It's from a year ago. Here's the date."

Richard read March 4th 2018 scribbled on the back. That was - that was the most recent news he'd had of Erlich. He felt excited. "That uh, that's a friend of mine. We're looking for him."

"Oh. Cool. Would you like to keep it?"

"Uh, yes, thank you! Do- do you know anyone who might know him? Who worked here a year ago? Or um, any of the other people in the photo?"

"Sorry, I don't think so. It's my place but I have a lot of people helping out for a month or two. They come and go."

Richard pressed his lips together, that was disapponting but he was still happy he'd found that photo. He held it up and nodded. "Thanks, dude."

*

They took a fond farewell with Phnom Pen after a couple of weeks and went off for a slow trek through Vietnam, lounging on beaches, swimming, hiking and checking off new species in Jared's birding notebook. They'd been travelling in Asia for a little over a month and were starting to look it. Richard had a perpetual, reddish five day beard and his hair was getting pretty unruly, Jared kept clean-shaved but could also do with a haircut, both were tan and lean from walking out in the sun most days. Their legs and arms had mosquito bites and it was just too hot to wear anything classier than shorts that breathed well and T-shirts. 

Eventually they reached Danang and took a flight out to Macau, and spent a day walking around, taking pictures and eating waffles with condensed milk and peanut butter before catching a ferry to Hong Kong. 

"Oh! You look so at home on a boat!" Jared said, taking a picture of Richard on deck.

"Jared, come on. It's a fucking ferry."

"Especially with that roguish beard. You're like a dashing pirate." Jared's hand fluttered at his neck. Richard smiled, shook his head, grabbed the railing and looked out into the distance at Hong Kong. 

"Look at that. That's so futuristic. What a cool fucking skyline. Erlich wrote something like, 'Hong Kong, home of the most badass kung fu movies and a big dope Buddha'." He turned to look at Jared. "It's going to be a lot more expensive than Vietnam. How long do you think we should stay for?"

"Well, our visas to enter mainland China aren't approved yet. It could take another week or so."

Richard bit his lip. "Do we suck for coming here right now?"

"Because of the demonstrations?" Jared said. 

"Yeah. Feels kind of weird. Showing up with a backpack and a camera with everything that's happening."

"I try to be optimistic," Jared said. "but some times, looking at everything that's happening in the world right now, it's difficult."

"So Hong Kong was reunified with China in 1997, that's 23 years ago. The deal was they'd have the same systems after 50 years, so they're halfway there. Is it happening too quick, is that it?"

"Well, according to pro-democracy activists the point was that mainland China would be more like Hong Kong after fifty years, not the other way around."

"Hmm. Right."

"Hong Kong is big," Jared said. "we don't have to be in the city centre. We could go north, go hiking in the national parks." He pulled up his map app and Richard looked. 

"Yeah, looks cool. Let's find a hotel and stay here for a night at least, check out the night markets."

After disembarking the ferry they started walking towards Kowloon. They saw the infamous Chungking Mansions and walked around the bustling ground floor but decided against staying there, walked up Nathan road a little further and found a nondescript two-star instead. By the time they got back outside it was already dark, and the myriad neon lights of the city overwhelmed the senses, standing out stark against the night sky.

"It's just like in the movies," Richard said. "it's beautiful."

There were lots of people out in the streets and everything from designer handbags to dried lizards was for sale. 

"Oh, Pokemon balloons," Jared said, pointing as a mom bought one each for her two kids. "so cute."

"I'll miss this," Richard said. "like, just this kind of nightlife." He'd bought fried fish balls with curry sauce on a wooden stick and was eating them off it. "I mean obviously you have bars and nightclubs here too but you can also just buy fish balls and a Pikachu balloon at night and that's fine. And you have like old people and kids and everyone out just like having a good time. It's nice."

Jared smiled. "Are you thinking about home?"

"I guess."

"What will you do when you get back?"

Richard was quiet for a while. "I have no fucking idea. Change my name, get some plastic surgery and try to get a job at Google. I don't know how to do anything except code. I don't want to do anything else."

"Plastic surgery," Jared scoffed. "if everybody looked as good as you, all plastic surgeons would be out of a job."

Richard laughed. "Okay, Jared."

"Oh, wait," Jared said, stopped Richard with a hand on his arm. "smell that?"

"Uh? Like-- like a sour smell?"

"Yes!" Jared said, smelled the air like a dog, and followed it.

"Ugh," Richard said, walking after Jared, as the smell got stronger. "where the fuck are we going? To see the Hong Kong sewer?"

Jared stopped in front of a cart selling cau dau fu, stinky tofu. "This is a famous delicacy, I've been dying to try it!" He enthusiastically negotiated and bought some, dipped a piece into a paper cup of chili sauce and brought it to his mouth. Richard watched him with a grin as he thoughtfully chewed.

"Uhh, so, how is it?"

"It's... hmmm.... it's... not bad! Yeah, it's... really interesting. Moreish. Would you like to try some?"

"No."

"Come on, Richard, try some."

"No! It smells like a jockstrap."

*

Richard opened the curtains on the two-star when they got back. "Ugh, I wish we faced the street. I just want to keep watching those lights."

Jared sat down on the bed, pulled his shirt off, yawned. "Time for bed, Richard."

"Wait, just one more thing."

"Mmm?" Jared looked up at him tiredly. They'd started the day in Vietnam, visited Macau, taken the ferry to Hong Kong and walked all over Kowloon. He was beat.

Richard got out his bluetooth speaker, and fiddled with his phone. "What a Diff'rence a Day Made" by Dinah Washington started playing. 

"Richard..."

"In uh, in like my favourite Hong Kong movie this is one of the songs they play? Two minutes. Come on." He reached a hand out. Jared sighed, but reached back, and Richard pulled him up. He put both arms around Richard's shoulders and Richard's arms circled his waist and drew him in. They danced slow and close. Jared thought about how Richard's long eyelashes went pale in the ends. Richard wanted to kiss Jared's neck so he did. Then Jared bowed his head and Richard raised his face and they kissed and it was dry-lipped and sleepy and soft but Jared's hand gripped Richard's shoulder, hard. On the final note they stopped moving but still held each other.

"Jared," Richard said, looking into his eyes. 

Then a loud ass Spotify commercial started and kind of ruined the moment as Richard jumped away to find his phone, and they went to bed and fell right asleep.

*

The next day, after doing a little sightseeing, they took a train up to Mai Po, which seemed like a good base to explore the national parks. It turned out to be excellent for birdwatching, and they saw fluffy-headed egrets, long-beaked snipes and leggy stilts, a tree full of cormorants. Jared seemed a little more subdued than he'd been on earlier birding expeditions however, and trailed behind Richard.

"Hey uh, are you okay?" Richard asked, rejoining Jared after having suddenly realised he was walking alone and turned to see Jared far behind him.

"Tired," Jared shrugged. "sorry."

"You're not getting sick, are you?"

Jared shook his head.

"Good. Um. Let's take a break." Richard got a picnic blanket out of his backpack and they sat down on it. "Wouldst milord like a chalice of soya milk?"

"Yes please," Jared giggled and Richard handed him a bottle from his backpack.

"And uh, wouldst thou join me in a feast of mushroom bao?"

"Mmm."

They ate in companionable silence, sitting on the side of the trail. The forest was dense and hummed with the noise of birds and insects. 

"I'm glad you're here," Richard said. "like, it's uh. Really nice. To be able to like, share this shit with you."

"Oh, Richard," Jared said. "I feel the same. I always... oh, I loved working for Pied Piper. It might have ended badly but those were the best years of my life. But the best times of all was when it was just you and me. From day one."

Richard grinned, embarrassed. "I'm not sure I'll ever know what you see in me, but okay."

"On whom the heart instinctive rests, in whom the spirit finds delight, with him, though one ne'er seen before, safely in friendship one may dwell." Jared proclaimed.

"Um," Richard said. "more Walt Whitman?"

"No," Jared said. "the Buddha. I read it in that book I bought in Thailand. There's a story where he meets two strangers who treat him as a son and he treats them as parents because for five hundred past lives that was what their relationship was, and then he composes that poem."

Richard rolled his eyes. "I hope you're not going to say we knew each other in a previous life."

Jared smiled. "No. It's a nice thought, though, isn't it? That you can find back to the love you lose? That you can recognise them across space and time?"

"It's corny. I didn't like, feel an instant attraction or kinship with you, I just felt like, holy shit this guy knows what the zachman framework is and how to format a budget, I need his number. And then the more I got to know you the more I liked you, because of like, who you are. You know, because you're kind and caring and smart and like... eccentric. I mean that as a compliment."

"Noted."

"And when I liked you, I started thinking you were really good looking too. I liked all the little stuff I never even noticed before, like the way your mouth turns down when you smile. That went from something I never even knew was a thing to like dealbreaker hot. And uhh I really like your nose... uh, this is getting embarrassing."

"My nose?" Jared laughed. "Oh goodness. My uncle used to tell me when they were handing out noses the guy who was supposed to go to Mount Rushmore got the wrong address and went to my house."

Richard scowled. "Well, fuck him. Your nose is perfect. And uh like uh your fingertips and earlobes and hipbones and uh. I'm into all of it." Richard looked away to draw in the ground with a stick. "It's never been like this before."

Jared put a hand on Richard's face and gently turned it to him for a kiss, and he tasted like mushrooms.

*

After a few more days their visas were cleared and they took the train to the mainland and towards Dali. Something was definitely different, Jared seemed... like, less into it? Not less into Richard, but just less into the like, adventure aspect. He didn't seem interested at all in asking around about Erlich and while he seemed happy to see the attractions when he got there, he'd stopped suggesting places to go and wasn't super enthusiastic when Richard made suggestions either. 

They'd traversed Guanxi and most of Yunnan province in a little under a week and Jared was sleeping deep on a long distance train, arms crossed, earplugs in, sleep mask on. Richard was beside him, reading a novel. 

"Ay, laowai!" someone said and Richard flinched a little at the informal term for "foreigner", but when he looked up the guy was white. He was - maybe somewhere in his thirties? His head was shaved and he looked like he'd been travelling for a while. He sat down opposite Richard, grinned, stuck his hand out. Richard smiled a little guardedly, but reached out to shake.

"I'm Mick," the guy said in an English accent. If Richard had to pin it down further, he'd say... Guy Ritchie movie. 

"Um, Richard. That's my friend Jared, sleeping."

"Americans," Mick said. "cool. I like you lot. You're fun."

"Oh, uh. Thank you."

"So where are you off to? Tiger Leaping Gorge?"

"No, but uh, maybe, later. We're headed to Tibet, actually, I'm kind of trying to find a friend of mine."

"Oh yeah? I was in Tibet for a few months. Interesting place."

"Oh?" Richard reached for his notebook, pulled out the photo of Erlich. "You uh, haven't seen this guy, have you?"

"Erlich!" Mick said, grinning. "Absolute legend."

Richard smiled. "You know Erlich?"

"Yeah, I met him a while ago."

"Like two years ago?" Richard asked.

"Nah mate, like... I wanna say six months ago? Five maybe?"

Richard's eyes widened. "Holy shit. Um, do you, uh, know where, exactly?"

"Course I do. He was a monk at a temple. Here, give me your book, I'll write down the name and address for ya."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The movie Richard is referring to is of course Chungking Express.


	11. "Whole Fish" and "Pork Ribs"

Richard looked up at the fifteen foot Guardian crushing a suffering soul. He'd seen literally dozens of temples over the last several weeks but he couldn't get enough of them. He liked the quiet, the solitude, the pretty gardens - such a nice change from the noise and bustle of the cities - and above all, he liked the scary ass statues. The big tall Buddhas were cool too, of course, but these colourful video game bosses had a vivacity and sense of humour which was kind of irresistible. He liked imagining how he would kill them if they came to life. 

Jared was back at the hotel, claiming a headache. He'd told Richard he really just wanted to sleep so he'd gone out without him. Richard felt hungry so he went to the temple restaurant, and instantly felt bad for going without Jared. They'd been looking for exactly this kind of restaurant for a while, unsuccessfully, a buddhist vegetarian restaurant that specialised in elaborate faux animal feasts. A waiter came over and Richard ordered the "whole fish". It was a lot of food. Maybe he could get the rest to go. The fish was incredibly artful, the body sculpted from bean paste replete with scales, the gills mushroom caps, the eye a carved piece of lotus. It was nicely balanced, too, the sweetness of the bean paste married well with the tartness of the marinated mushroom and bland vegetables. Richard looked at the demolished plate and realised a little shamefacedly there wouldn't be any leftovers to bag up, ordered some green tea and promised himself to bring Jared the next day. 

After he'd eaten he went back into the garden and sat down on a bench near the pond. He looked at his Erlich notebook. It had Erlich's original travel itinerary, Richard's notes - which had turned from keyword-based brainstorm notes to kind of a confessional diary - the picture of Erlich he'd found in Cambodia, and, most recently, the note from that British guy which said _Khor-Biyong monastery, near Charahbang village_. He felt happy. Part of him had been afraid Erlich was dead, which was a feeling he'd barely dared acknowledge, but now he had like, his address. So Erlich had found enlightenment. Man, he wanted to see him again. He really wanted to - for the first time he actually wanted to talk about the Pied Piper launch, with Erlich. It was funny how Erlich's series of shitshows led him to ascend to a higher spiritual plane. Whereas Richard... had kind of gone to a dark place, after the Event. But he could see a future now. With Jared, hopefully. Probably. It could be good, couldn't it? He'd always sucked at relationships, but he really thought he could make this one work. Like, there was absolutely no hope for him if he couldn't make _this_ work. He got up and set off back to the hotel.

"Hi, Jared," Richard said, locking himself into the dim hotel room. Jared was lying in bed, under the covers, reading a book. He turned to look at Richard and smiled. "how are you feeling?"

"Better. I took some painkillers." Richard sat down on the bed and reached out to feel his forehead. Jared batted his hand away. "Stop it, I'm not sick."

"I mean, are you sure?"

"I'm just tired," Jared said.

"How are you tired? We went to bed at like ten last night."

Jared dogeared his book and folded it together. "Richard, we've been on the road for more than two months. I just- look, why don't we rent an apartment? Here, maybe? I could try to get a job teaching English, you could freelance remotely."

"Work?" Richard frowned. That didn't sound very appealing.

"I just, I just would like some routine. I'd like a fridge with yoghurt in it. I'd like a shower whose water pressure I can get used to. God help me, I'd like to watch TV, even if it's just the Chinese version of The Masked Singer. I'd like to do laundry every week and cook my own food. I'd like to be able to suck your pretty dick in the middle of the day without traumatising a maid."

Richard rolled his eyes. "That happened ONE time, and she chose to ignore a sign with Do Not Disturb in three different languages on it, so she can blame herself. Besides, she works in a hotel, she's seen worse, believe me."

"Not going by the way she screamed."

Richard bit his lip. "So, uh, I found a really nice restaurant, we should go there tomorrow. You'll love it!"

"Okay." Jared reached for his book again. 

"Like, I get that you're tired, but we're like, so close. I arranged entry into Tibet earlier today, online. We're joining a group departing from Lijiang."

Jared sighed deeply, and nodded.

*

Jared was a little more upbeat the next day, they went back to the buddhist restaurant and he was delighted, photographing his dish of "pork ribs" with "bones" made from lotus root and stringy "meat" made from vegetable protein before trying it. Richard noticed his eyes had dark circles. 

"Did you sleep okay last night?"

Jared shrugged. 

"Okay sorry to be a fucking bore but I feel like there's something you're not telling me."

Jared bit his lip. "You're not the only one who had a hard time after the launch."

Well, there it was. They'd completely managed to avoid talking about it until then. Richard cleared his throat. "I mean, I know that. I know that's not a great thing to have on your CV, I'm aware. But like, you have a really good network, you didn't have a technical role-"

"I'm not talking about being able to get a new job," Jared said. "I don't think I want to work in tech anymore anyway." He looked thoughtful. "I think I'd like to work with people."

"Uh, what is it, then?"

"I've worried so much. I'm just, I'm just so exhausted." Jared sniffled and a fat tear streaked his face and Richard felt too horrified to ask further. 

*

Early the next morning Richard woke up from Jared coming back into bed, bathroom door open. 

"Hey, baby," Richard said drowsily, realised he really needed to pee, so he went to the bathroom himself, then brushed his teeth, looked at himself in the mirror. What had Jared called him, a pirate? More like a fucking hobo.

"Oh!" Jared said when he emerged, clean-shaven. "Look at you!"

"I'll see if I can find someone to give me a haircut later today. I look like... an incorrigible fop. Heh." He climbed back into bed and Jared ran long fingers through his hair. 

"Don't take off too much. I love your curls." Richard smiled and leaned in to kiss him and Jared kissed back and what was supposed to just be like, an affectionate little press of lips before just going back to sleep turned into a makeout session and Jared pulled Richard on top of him and Richard reached down to wrap his fingers around both of their dicks, stroking slow. 

"I want you," Richard said.

"You have me."

"What uh, what do you want, Jared, baby, uh? You, you want... you wanna fuck me? You want my mouth? You want uhh you wanna eat me out? Tell me."

Jared took his face in both hands. "Make love to me."

Richard nodded, felt a little unsure, it was really easier to just let Jared lead to put it like that, so he went slowly, took his time opening him up with his fingers, stroking Jared's body with his free hand, his thighs, his hips, his rounded belly. Jared was on his back, holding his knees up with his hands, giving Richard access. 

"Is this okay?" he kept asking as he flexed his fingers inside Jared. "Is this nice?"

"Mmmm," Jared sighed. "yes, yes. Ahh--"

"You look so fucking good, you know that?"

Jared didn't answer, just pressed the back of his head down into the mattress, mouth red and open. Richard pulled his fingers out, leaned over him for a kiss, lightly grabbed at Jared's throat and then ran his hand down the length of his body. "Here uh here, on the edge, here."

Trembling a little, Jared moved until he reached the edge, grabbing his legs again. Richard got off the bed and stood between his legs, took himself in hand. "Um, ready, baby?"

"Mmhmm."

Richard pushed slowly into him. Jared let his arms fall over his head. They fucked slow for a while, then Richard kind of lost control from the grip and the heat of Jared and started thrusting hard, but Jared just breathed heavy, clutching at the sheets.

"I'm close I'm uh, fuck," Richard said, spat in his hand and reached down to stroke Jared's dick, roughly. Jared yelped. 

"Richard, Richard, Richard--" Jared gasped and came over his stomach and Richard just made an undignified noise and followed. 

"Jesus Christ," Richard panted, then went off to get a washcloth and clean them off a bit. He slumped down on the bed and pulled Jared close. "was uh that was okay, right?"

"A little above okay," Jared giggled. Richard turned his face and kissed Jared's temple. 

"So uhh. I've been thinking," Richard said.

"Mmmmm?"

"You should go back home."

Jared turned his face and stared. "What?"

"Like, clearly, you're over it, you want to like get started on life again and not be here in backpacker limbo. I get it. You should go home."

"I want to be with you," Jared said firmly.

"You will be," Richard said. "I just, I'm not sure I'll ever get the chance to go to Tibet again, to see Erlich. I need to do that, Jared."

"I know, and I'll come with you. Then we go home."

"I looked up some stuff online and it's going to be really low on mod cons. If you're tired and sad staying in okay hotels, you're just not going to like this. Like..." Richard cleared his throat. "when you said you worried, you were worried for me, right? I can't do this if I'm worried for you." Jared buried his face in Richard's neck. Richard reached up to lose a hand in his hair. "So uh, I mean it. Go home, eat some yoghurt, see your friends, or whatever... and just give me a few weeks to find him and talk to him, and then I'll come back. I promise, Jared, I fucking swear."

Jared sighed deep. "Let's go back to sleep. I'll decide in the morning."

*

They were at the Dali City train station, and the long distance train for Beijing had pulled onto the track. The passengers had already started piling on board. Jared looked at his phone. "Five minutes until departure. I should probably go find my seat."

"Okay uh," Richard said, opened his arms, and Jared smiled, leaned down into a tight hug. "like uh, take care uh, I'll DM you whenever I have wifi."

"You better," Jared said, pulling away. "goodbye, Richard."

"Goodbye, Jared."

Jared turned and got on the train with a little wave and Richard waved back. He swallowed, stepped nervously from foot to foot. Nothing about this felt good. "Fuuck," he muttered, bit his lip hard, then stepped aboard the train, looked around into the carriage to the right, then the left, saw the back of Jared's head and pushed through the other passengers to get to him. 

"Uhh," he said, grabbing Jared's shirt, and Jared turned, stared.

"Richard?"

"Just, forgot to tell you something uh," Richard said, pulled him down to whisper in his ear. "I love you, Jared." 

The whistle blew and Richard jerked away, started running down the aisle and jumped out the doors right before they were about to close. Richard turned and ran along the side of the train until he saw Jared in the window, waved. Jared waved back, mouth falling open. Richard put a hand over his heart. The train pulled away, too fast for Richard to keep up with. He stopped and watched it drive off. He suddenly felt pretty fucking incredibly corny. Who was he, Hugh Grant in a shitty movie from like 1998? His phone buzzed. It was a message from Jared. _I LOVE YOU TOO!!!_

*

It was kind of weird being on his own again. Some times he'd see a tall dude and kind of flinch but it never turned out to be Jared, who seemed to have finally given up his jack-in-the-box act. They messaged a lot, whenever Richard could find a cafe or hostel with wifi. Richard sent him pictures of birds. Jared sent him job ads, which Richard knew was well-intentioned but he genuinely didn't want to even think about the fucking hassle it was going to be to get another tech job coming off a disaster like Pied Piper. They also sent nudes, which Richard had less of a problem with. 

He met a lot of people, which was bizarrely easy and natural now he was travelling alone. Unlike Madrid the hostels in this part of the world, at this time of year, seemed to be more for seasoned travellers than partying kids so it was actually possible to get some sleep even when rooming with a half a dozen strangers. Some of them were completely fucking weird but he also met researchers in tibetology and paleontology, a french woman who had had a crisis of faith after a terrorist attack and decided to reconnect with the beauty of the world through seeing it all, a sprightly 76 year old who'd never left New Zealand before but who'd lost his wife, didn't see his kids much and "was sick and tired of seeing the same old house every day", a Korean TV producer doing groundwork for a documentary. 

The trip to Charahbang village took two weeks of small local buses, taxi rides, hostels and guest houses, and on the last stretch a guided hiking trip with a local guy. They walked for about six hours until they reached the village, and while conversation was pretty limited, when Richard had shown him the polaroid he'd nodded and said "aah, Erlich", so Richard was, to put it mildly, pretty fucking excited. The guide took him to a simple guest house and they shared a meal of momo, dumplings filled with yak meat and served in melted yak butter, and then a room with hard pallets with blankets over to sleep on. Being completely beat fram walking all day Richard had no problems passing out. Early the next morning they walked up the trail for the monastery. 

The monastery sat on the face of the mountain, like it was carved straight out of the rock. It was simple but elegantly beautiful, with stone chorten and the sloped architecture Richard had become so familiar with. They were greeted by a cadre of small, adorable temple dogs and a monk wearing a bright red robe. The guide and the monk exchanged a few words, and Richard pulled out the Erlich polaroid.

"Can uh, can I talk to this man? Erlich Bachmann? Is he here?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The names of the monastery and the village are very deep cut comic book references, ten points if you get them.


	12. Tsampa

If only there hadn't been rats. It had been a week since Pied Piper's launch and the news outlets still couldn't get enough of the story. NPR's Oh rats! The story of Pied Piper podcast (et tu, NPR?) was number one in the charts but obviously none of the main players had agreed to an interview. Richard's former PA Holden had, to what Jared assumed was nobody's surprise, answered the call though. What a little snake. Richard had disappeared after his press conference, and wasn't answering Jared's calls or messages. He'd stopped by Dinesh's apartment to see how he was doing and had been surprised to find Gilfoyle there as well.

"We're pooling our resources," Gilfoyle said. "this living arrangement is strictly temporary."

"You're living together?" Jared asked and Gilfoyle had looked pained. Dinesh just grinned in a smug way. 

"We're going to go into business together," Dinesh said. "we're brainstorming."

"Please. You're braindrizzling, at best. I'm a man out of options. Nobody else will hire us, so we're going to do our own thing."

"And we rule, so it's going to go great."

Jared nodded. "Um, Monica appears to be doing well too. I texted her, and she says she's going to lay low in Hawaii until the news cycle moves on and then try to get into fundraising."

"Hawaii..." Dinesh said with a melancholy expression. 

"No," Gilfoyle said and Jared was lost. "have you heard from Dick?"

"Um, I haven't, he's not returning my calls. Have either of you..." They shook their heads. "I um. I still have his spare key. Would it be unethical of me to use it?"

"I'm sure he'd like nobody finding his body more than you."

"Shut the fuck up," Dinesh hissed at Gilfoyle when he saw Jared's crestfallen expression. "he's joking."

* * *

Richard squinted at the monk in the bright, clear sunshine, holding up the polaroid. 

"Erlich," the monk said, then made a beleaguered face. He walked towards the main building, gestured for Richard to follow. Richard did, feeling wiry and weird. He walked inside, and sitting among the brothers, was a big, bald, white dude. Richard's mouth twisted into a big smile. 

"Erlich?"

* * *

Two weeks after Pied Piper's launch Jared had worked up the nerve to lock himself into Richard's apartment for the first time. It was dark. Letters put through the door slot slid away. He kneeled down to look at them. Unopened bills. 

"Richard?"

An answering noise came from the bedroom and he went inside. Richard was in bed, looking suspiciously at him. 

"Hey, Richard," Jared said, gently, smiling. "I'm so sorry to come barging in like this, but you haven't been answering my calls."

"Yeah, sorry. I keep my phone turned off a lot. People call me for all sorts of shit. They can talk to Ron."

He looked thin and wan. 

"There's a lot of unopened mail there, Richard."

"Uh, I guess."

"Why don't, um, why don't I, make us some dinner, and we can maybe watch a movie together? Why don't we watch Jurassic Park? No wait, let's watch, uh, Star Treks!"

"I'm sorry, Jared." Richard turned over on his side. "I'm too tired."

Jared had ended up staying for an hour or so, quietly paying Richard's bills (right in time as some of his utilies were about to be turned off), going outside and buying groceries and filling up his empty fridge and cupboard, and airing the place out a little bit. If Richard knew he was in there, he didn't comment, nor did he come out to see what he was doing. Before he left, he ordered a pizza, and knocked on Richard's door when it arrived.

"Richard? Um, wow, I ordered a delicious cheese pizza by mistake, I'm so sorry, I'm just going to leave it on the counter. Smell that? That's uh pizza... well, guess I'll be off, sorry again about, the tasty pizza."

* * *

The big white monk turned and was... not Erlich. The monk that had greeted them exchanged a few words with him, and he got up and nodded at Richard. They walked together and sat down on a simple bench.

"I'm Greg," the monk said in a flat midwestern accent. "you're looking for Erlich Bachmann?"

"Yeah, I'm uh, I'm a friend of his, from like, years ago. I came all this way to try and find him."

"I'm afraid you missed him," Greg said apologetically. "Erlich had shares in some company that got very successful. We don't have internet up here but he'd travel into the city to get supplies sometimes, and check up on it in the internet cafe. He cashed out and left the monastery around four months ago."

"You have got to be kidding me," Richard said, groaned and fell back towards the wall. 

* * *

Five weeks after Pied Piper's launch Jared was at his wits end. He paid a visit to Abby, Gloria's granddaughter. He hadn't seen her since the service. He missed Gloria every day but he especially missed her now. He wished he had someone to talk to about the whole Richard situation, someone who wouldn't make suicide jokes. 

"Well, now he's not your boss anymore, are you going to shoot your shot?" Abby's legs were underneath her on her yellow sofa and she raised an eyebrow.

"I think if something like that was going to happen between Richard and I, it would have done so already," Jared replied, playing with his collar. "all I can do now is be there for him in his hour of need."

"So what did you have in mind?" Abby asked.

Jared put down his tea cup, and pulled some papers out of his bag. "You have of course developed into such an excellent original artist, but I hope you're still a great copyist?"

Abby shrugged. "I'm okay."

"Your copy of the Goya painting is just perfect, I have it up in my condo," Jared said. "this is a handwritten letter to myself from Erlich Bachmann."

Abby took it, read it and frowned. "This is a death threat?"

Jared laughed. "Oh, just boys being boys. And this here," he handed her another paper. "is a list of cities and some notes I have tried to write in Erlich's style. What I would like for you to do is copy what I wrote in Erlich's handwriting. I really apologise in advance for some of the misogynistic language."

Abby smiled a little, then held up both the papers and squinted. "Yeah, should be easy. So you're faking an itinerary?"

Jared cleared his throat. "Richard has been in bed for over a month. He refuses to see a therapist or even visit his parents. If I didn't visit, I'm not sure he'd eat or have electricity. But he won't... let me help him get better. I thought if maybe he had a little, I don't know, like a little nudge in the right direction... he talked about going travelling, which I happen to think is a very good idea. He needs to get out of Palo Alto where everybody knows his face. But he doesn't seem to know where he wants to go."

"So you're sending him to Zurich?" she frowned.

"And not just Zurich! All kinds of fun places. Copenhagen... Well. Maybe. If it works. I even tried writing in some subtle clues for fun activities."

"Like here, where you've written 'I wanna visit the Anne Frank House'?"

"Exactly," Jared said warmly. "you get it."

"And then South East Asia?"

"Well, Erlich went there."

"Okay, I could get this done for you in maybe like an hour? But Jared," Abby said, scratching her head. "have you really thought this all the way through? It sounds like he's in a pretty bad place, I'm not sure being all alone in a foreign country will help."

"He won't be alone. I'll be there. I'll be his companion, his friend, his wing man if necessary."

"What if he doesn't want you to come?"

Jared smiled mildly. "One hour, you said? I really can't thank you enough, Abby."

With the freshly made fake itinerary in his bag, Jared had paid a visit to Richard. Their conversation had been one he felt like he'd repeated several times over the last weeks. He introduced the idea of travelling, which was greeted with the usual wan indifference.

"Text me if you need me, okay? For anything at all." Jared looked down on Richard, huddled up on his bed, and he ached.

"Okay, Jared. Thanks." His voice was small and cracked.

"Is it okay if I hang on to your spare key?" It still felt weird locking himself in without Richard's expressed consent.

A pause. "Yeah, man. Thanks."

Jared smiled, even if Richard wasn't looking at him to see it, and walked out of the bedroom. He closed the door gently behind him. He reached into his bag and got the fake itinerary out. Where could he put it so Richard would find it? He looked around and noticed the book of Polish posters. If he wasn't wrong, that had once belonged to Erlich. He took it out of the shelf and smelled it. Yep, that was a former Erlich belonging. He stuck the note in, at the end. But what would make Richard read it? Jared remembered an old card trick he once learned. If you stuck a card out a little bit, most people would just subconsciously choose it when asked to pick a random card, and you would be able to "guess" it. He pulled the book out a little further than all the others and wondered if it would work. If not, he'd leave it on the coffee table the next time he stopped by.

He had been surprised when Richard had texted him already that same night. He'd hoped he'd tell him where he was going and maybe even invite him along, but he hadn't, so Jared had just ordered a ticket to Zurich and hoped for the best. If nothing else, he had Richard's general itinerary, as long as he didn't veer from it.

* * *

Richard ended up staying the night in the monastery. Greg was pretty chill, and nice to talk to. He'd used to be an investment banker, lost everything in 2008. But he claimed he'd gained perspective. They shared a simple meal of tsampa - barley, tea and yak milk.

"They really like the taste of yak here, uh," Richard said. Greg shrugged.

"It's a useful animal. There's something wonderful about the simplicity, I think."

"So did Erlich say where he went?"

"I believe he went to Shangri-La City first, he talked about giving some money to the orphanage?"

"Um, okay?"

"But he was always going on about Malaysia too. Apparently he went there a while back and really loved it."

"Um"

"And he had a real thing about Japan."

Richard sighed deeply. "He had a whole itinerary, huh."

"Pretty much." Greg emptied his bowl. "You know, Richard, westerners don't come up here unless they're searching for something. Or running away from something. Which one are you?"

Richard bit his lip. "I don't know. Both."

"Will you keep searching for Erlich?"

Richard thought about the question, lying on the simple pallet in the monastery. He got his phone out. No signal. He snapped a selfie. 

* * *

In the following weeks Jared found Richard in Zurich walking down the street the hotel he'd listed in their shared calendar was on. He'd found Richard in Madrid after getting a picture message from the Prado. He'd found Richard in Bangkok after researching when the flights from Spain leaving the day after his would arrive, and waited patiently in a cafe in front of the train station. Through a combination of luck and educated guesses, he hadn't lost him from his sight. And what he'd witnessed was a blossoming. Travel agreed with Richard. He was his old self. He was interested, engaged, present, excited. It made Jared so happy he could cry. When Richard had, to Jared's genuine surprise, initiated a physical relationship, he'd been shocked, but not so much he didn't reciprocate. What followed had been some of the sweetest days of Jared's life. 

* * *

Richard was in Lhasa, in a cafe with decent wifi. Not facetime decent, but stable. He sent Jared a picture of himself on the trail to Charahbang, in his sunhat. Jared sent back a series of heart eye emoji. 

_You make Harrison Ford look like Shirley Temple!_ Jared wrote. Richard snorted.

_Wanna see a selfie from a Tibetan monastery?_

_YESSSSSSSS_ Jared replied and Richard sent it along. More heart eye emoji. 

_According to one of the monks Erlich could be in Shangri-La City, or Malaysia_

_Oh_ Jared wrote. Then, _Are you going to go looking for him?_

Richard sighed at his phone. _No. I'm coming home._

A huge smiling emoji. Then, _When???_

_I'm taking a flight from Lhasa to Beijing tomorrow, and then a flight from Beijing to LAX tomorrow night, then a local flight to San Francisco. Will you come meet me?_

_Of course I'll meet you Richard!!!_

Richard smiled. _Cool. I'll send you my itinerary._

* * *

After months of thinking of nothing but Richard's wellbeing, travelling as many days as not, trying all kind of unfamiliar foods, sleeping in new beds, Jared was so exhausted he was running on fumes. When Richard had suggested he go home, a part of him - a guilty part - had been relieved. Spending weeks trekking through rural Tibet sounded like hell to him. But he wasn't about to go back to the states. If Richard needed him, he had no intention of being halfway around the planet. So he'd gone to Beijing, where he guessed Richard would fly out from, and found a short term rental apartment. One night he went out and met some American English teachers, and they'd gotten him a gig at a kindergarten, which was a welcome distraction. The kids were fascinated with him and had long discussions whether or not Teacher Jared was taller than Yao Ming. Jared loved it, they sang songs and played word games and the kids loved looking at his photos from around the world and called Jared's friend Richard "very handsome" when he'd taught them what that meant. Then one day he got the text from Richard saying he was going home and bought himself a ticket on the same flight. There had been a lot of crying at the kindergarten when he broke the news, some of the kids had joined in too. But oh, he couldn't wait to see Richard again.

* * *

Richard tiredly strapped himself into the plane seat, tried not to think about how fucking long the flight was going to be. At least there'd be movies. He was gonna fucking binge watch... whatever was available. Even the oeuvre of Kevin Hart would hit the spot after going this long without TV or streaming.

"Goodness! Richard!"

Richard looked up, and his mouth fell open when he realised, standing in the aisle of the plane, on the way to find his own seat, was Jared.

*

The flight for LAX was crowded and Jared hadn't been able to see Richard in the boarding queue, but on the plane, suddenly he could see a very familiar, slight, curly haired figure reaching to put his bag and jacket into the overhead compartment, and his heart was so full. He tried to control his smile, tried to compose a natural reaction for when he passed his seat. "Goodness! Richard!"

Richard gawped up at him. "What the- Jared? Why- you're not home?"

Jared shrugged. "I liked it in Beijing so much, I decided to stay for a little while longer."

"Move it along okay?" the passenger behind Jared told him, annoyed.

"Sorry," Jared said, smiled at Richard, and went to find his seat. Once they were in the air, maybe they could talk a little. Jared stowed away his hand luggage (and helped some more vertically challenged co-passengers stow theirs), sat down, put the safety belt on and started reading a novel. An air stewardess came over and talked to the older guy seated next to him in soft Mandarin, and he got up. Moments later, he came back. Then he touched Jared's arm. Jared looked over, and the older Chinese guy had turned into Richard. Jared's mouth fell open a little bit.

"I asked if I could change seats."

It was too cramped for a hug, but Jared hugged him anyway, buried his face in the place where Richard's neck met his shoulder. Richard laughed a little and Jared thrilled at the sound and pulled away, grabbed Richard's hand and squeezed it tight, threaded their fingers together.

"Oh gosh, it's good to see you. I missed you." He took a deep breath. He'd heard his own voice go a little wobbly.

"I missed you too, man."

Jared bit his lip. "What happens now, Richard?"

Richard stroked the back of Jared's hand with his thumb, smiled. "We go home, Jared. Together."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [a-pair-of-boys-back-in-business made a gorgeous moodboard](https://a-pair-of-boys-back-in-business.tumblr.com/post/190557624649/made-for-the-incomparable-iamtheremin-after) for this fic!! thank you!!
> 
> and [jununy made an amazing illustration](https://jununy.tumblr.com/post/624946777451266048)! Aaah!
> 
> [Here's a little deleted scene](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22364092/chapters/53428210) set in Phnom Penh, and [here's a silly thing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22364092/chapters/54323485) riffing on one of the jokes in this set well after they've come home.
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


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